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THE 



POLITICAL WRITINGS 



OF 



THOMAS PAINE, 



SECRETARY TO THE COMMITTEE OF FOREIGN AFFAIRS IN THE 
AMERICAN REVOLUTION. 



TO WHICH IS PREFIXED 

A BRIEF SKETCH OF THE AUTHOR'S LIFE 

A NEW EDITION WITH ADDITIONS. 



IN TWO VOLUMES. 
VOL. L 



GRANVILLE, MIDDLETOWN, N.J. 
GEORGE H. EVANS. 

1837 






9^ 




BRIEF SKETCH 



LIFE OF THOMAS PAINE. 



Thomas Paim: was born in Thetford, COUnty of Norfolk, 

England, January 2D, \~M. \l\- father was a Btavmakor by 

trade, and professed the Quaker system of religion. His parents 

lectable though pour, which prevented their giving him 

a college education. All the 1 taming which he possessed, P/as 
obtained at ■ common English grammar schooL 

He loft school when he was about thirteen, and went to work 

with his lather, at Btaymaking, where he continued two or three 

tie thru went to London, and afterwards to Dover, 

working at his trade a few W( About this 

time he ent< red <»n hoard a privateer, bul was prevented from 
going in her, as he says, u by the affectionate and moral remon- 
strances of his father." Dissatisfied, however, with his profes- 
sion, he soon after entered and sailed in the privateer king of 
Prussia, captain EVlendez. Mow long he was absent is uncertain. 

In the vear 1759, he settled at Sandwich, as ■ master-stay- 
maker, and married Mary Lambert, who died the next pear. 

lie obtained a situation in the excise in 1761, which he retain- 
ed till 1774. 

In 1771, he married Elizabeth Olive ; he lived with her but a 
short time ; a separation took place, the real cause of which, 
although a number ha\e been assigned, as is usual in such cases, 
probably was never known to the public. Alter the separation 
from his wife, he went to London, where he procured an intro- 
duction to Dr. Franklin, who advised him to go to America ; this 
advice he followed, and arrived in Philadelphia ahout tho close of 
the year 177-i. Here his political career commenced. 

His first engagement was with Mr. Aitkin, a bookseller, who 
established the Pennsylvania Magazine in January, 1775, which 



jy X BRIEF 8KETCH OF THE 

Paine edited for some time with great ability. His monody on 
the Death of Gen. Wolfe, and Reflections on the death of lord 
Clive, were first published in this magazine, and contributed much 
to its popularity. At this time he became acquainted with, and 
visited many people of the first rank ; among whom were Frank- 
lin, Rittenhouse, G. Clymer, Dr. Rush, and others. 

It was Dr. Rush who suggested to him the idea of writing 
Common Sense, which was published in January, 1776 ; and, as 
the doctor says, " bursted from the press with an effect which 
has rarely been produced by types and paper in any age or coun 
try." Before this work was published, it was submitted to the 
inspection of Dr. Franklin, Mr. Samuel Adams, and other dis- 
tinguished patriots, who spoke in the highest terms of it. 

In the summer and autumn of 1776, he served as a volunteer 
in the American army, under Gen. Washington, and associated 
with officers of the first class. 

The first number of The Crisis was published in December, 
1776, and had a most invigorating effect on the spirits of the 
army, of public bodies, and of private citizens. " These," said 
The Crisis, " are the times that try men's souls. The summer 
soldier, and the sunshine patriot, will, in this crisis, shrink from 
the service of his country, but he that stands it now, deserves the 
love and thanks of man and woman." 

Three numbers of The Crisis were published in the year 1777, 
with the same success as the first. 

On the 17th of April, 1777, Paine was elected Secretary to the 
Committee of Foreign Affairs, which office he held twenty-one 
months. He also acted as clerk to the legislature of Pennsylva- 
nia about the year 1780. 

Three more numbers of The Crisis were published in 1778 ; 
three in 1780, in which year he wrote the pamphlet entitled Pub 
lie Good, on the claim of Virginia to the Western Territory. 

In 1782, four numbers of The Crisis appeared. The two last 
were written in 1783. 

In February, 1781, Mr. Paine accompanied Col. Laurens to 
France, where they obtained for the United States a loan of ten 
millions of livres, and a present of six millions. On his return 
he published his Letter to the abbe Raynal. 

When the army was about to be disbanded, in 1783, Washing- 
ton used all his influence to obtain from congress some compen- 
sation for the services which Paine had rendered the country by 
his revolutionary writings. In August, 1785, Congress passed 
the following resolution : " Resolved, that the early, unsolicited, 
and continued labors of Mr. Thomas Paine, in explaining and 
enforcing the principles of the late revolution, by ingenious and 
timely publications upon the nature of liberty and civil govern- 
ment, have been well received by the citizens of these states, and 
merit the approbation of congress ; and that in consideration of 
these services, and the benefits produced thereby, Mr. Paine is 



MFE OF THOMAS PAINE T 

entitled to a liberal gratification from the United States." This 
liberal gratification was three thousand dollars ; which was all 
the compensation he ever received from government. 

Paine also received from the state of Pennsylvania 500/. cur- 
rency ; and from New-York, a tine estate of 300 acres of land, 
with all necessary buildings attached to it ; situated in New-Ro- 
chelle, West Chester county. 

Dissertations on Government, the affairs of the Bank, and 
Paper Money, was published in 1786. The occasion of it was 
as follows : In the year 1780, when the British army had over- 
run the southern states ; when the finances of the country were 
exhausted ; and the American army were in the greatest distress, 
a voluntary subscription for its relief was proposed in Philadel- 
phia. The amount raised in this way was three hundred thousand 
pounds ;* which was afterwards converted into a bank by the 
subscribers, headed by Robert Morris, and supplied the wants of 
the army. This supply was probably instrumental in enabling 
Washington to cany into effect his well-concerted plan against 
Cornwallis. This bank was incorporated by congress in 1781, 
and further incorporated by an act of the Pennsylvania legislature 
the following year. 

" When the war was over — when extreme distress had ceased, 
and the services which the bank had rendered were forgotten, it 
was attacked as an institution incompatible with individual pros- 
perity, and public safety. The legislature of Pennsylvania was 
urgently petitioned to repeal their act of incorporation. The 
petitions were referred to a select commitee who reported in favor 
of its repeal. Here was an attempt, under the pretence of pro 
moting liberty, happiness, and safety, to violate them all by a 
most tyrannical invasion of private property ! Paine, very un- 
ceremoniously and vigorously, assailed both the assembly and its 
petitioners, and probably averted the act of despotism which the 
freemen were about to commit." 

Paine sailed from the United States, in April, 1787, for France, 
where he exhibited the model of a bridge, of his invention, to the 
academy of sciences. From France he passed over to England, 
and arrived in London, September, 1787. 

While in England, Paine became acquainted with Mr. Thomas 
Walker, of Manchester, the friend and companion of Fox. He 
was a liberal encourager of the arts ; and, with his assistance, 
Paine was enabled to have an arch of his bridge cast in iron, at 
Rotherham, in Yorkshire. The bridge obtained for him a high 
reputation among the mathematicians of Europe. 

Early in the year 1788, he published in London, Prospects on 
the Rubicon. The United Provinces, and France, being embroil- 
ed with Prussia, it was supposed that England would be drawn 
into the quarrel. It was written on this subject. 

* Mr. Paine subscribed 5001. 



yi A BRIEF SKETCH OF THE 

The Rights of Man, part first, was published in London, in 
March, 1791, and gained as much popularity in England, as his 
Common Sense had in the United States. 

In February, 1792, the second part of the Rights of Man was 
published in London. In May, of the same year, the king issued 
a proclamation for suppressing all "seditious and libellous works ;" 
designating none, but evidently aiming at the Rights of Man. 
The attorney-general commenced a prosecution the same day 
against Paine, as the author. 

His trial was to come on the following December. In Sep- 
tember, preceding, a French deputation announced to him his 
election to the national convention, from the department of Ca- 
lais. He immediately left England ; but his trial came on as if 
he were present — for libellous passages in the Rights of Man, 
and of course a verdict of guilty was rendered. It is never very 
difficult for the British government, in state prosecutions, to have 
a verdict awarded in its favor. 

In the national convention, Paine voted for the trial of Louis 
XVI. and, on the trial, delivered a speech in favor of preserving 
his life. 

The French convention, in December, 1793, passed a decree 
for the expulsion of all members from it who were foreigners by 
birth ; and by consequence Paine was expelled. This decree 
was followed by another the same month, for imprisoning every 
man in France who was born in England. Under this decree he 
was thrown into prison. He had just finished the first part of 
the Age of Reason, which he left with Mr. Barlow, when he was 
arrested. His confinement lasted eleven months, from Dec. 
1793, to Nov. 1794. After his, liberation, he found an asylum 
in the house of Mr. Monroe, the American minister in France, 
where he continued eighteen months. He resumed his seat in 
the national convention, on the invitation of that body. 

His next work was a pamphlet On the English system of 
Finance, published April, 1796. In July following, he published 
his Letter to general Washington. 

In October, 1796, he published the second part of the Age oj 
Reason, and in the year following, a Letter to the hon. Thomas 
Erskine, a pamphlet entitled Agrarian Justice, and a Letter to 
the people and armies of France. This was his last publication 
in France. 

Paine now wished to return to the United States, which was 
no easy matter : the fleets of Great Britain covered the ocean, 
having received orders to search for him in all vessels leaving 
France. He made arrangements for accompanying Mr. Monroe 
home, which circumstances, fortunately for him, prevented ; as 
the vessel in which he embarked was boarded by a British frigate, 
and strictly searched. After a number of unsuccessful attempts 
to procure a safe passage, he finally succeeded, and arrived at 
Baltimore, Oct. 30, 1802. From thence he went to Washington, 



LIKE Or THOMAS PAINK. vil 

where he continued five or six months. While there he wrote 
several letters, addressed To the people of the United States. 

Besides the works here enumerated, Paine was the author of 
several minor productions, and among them a number of pieces 
of poetry ; the best of which are the monody On the death of 
general Wolfe, and the Castle in the Air. 

In May, 1803, he went to New-York, with the intention of re- 
siding there. His estate in New-Rochellc, West Chester county, 
had greatly increased in value during his absence of fourteen 
years. Here, and in the city of New-York, he resided till his 
death, which occurred in the latter place. He was removed to 
New-Rochelle, and buried on his estate 1 , and this inscription, at 
his own request, placed on his tombstone. u Thomas Paine, 
author of Common Sense : died June 8th, 1809, aged 72 years 
and 5 months." 

Probably no man ever was more abused by writers than Tho- 
mas Paine. Nothing like an impartial history of his life and 
writmgs has been published : he seems, according to his biogra- 
pners, a vara avis — a man without our good quality ; who lived 
more than seventy years without nrr performing one good action 
with a good intention. Some occurrences, on which it would be 
ridiculous in men of sense not to bestow praise, they have, wisely 
for their plan, passed slightly over. But invariably, where there 
was room to hang a doubt, they have attributed the worst of mo- 
tives to him. 

That his publications during the American revolution, were of 
eminent service to this country, cannot be disputed. And al- 
though now every one is familiar with, and advocates the senti- 
ments contained in them, it should be recollected that they were 
nearly original, and dangerous to be acknowledged at that time. 
When Common Sense was written, it was very difficult to get 
anyone in Philadelphia who would run the risk of printing it. A 
Scotchman was at last induced to undertake it. 

Some of our greatest men have borne testimony to the efficacy 
of this work. Among them, Ramsay, in his History of the Re- 
volution, says — "Nothing could have been better timed than this 
performance, (Common Sense.) In unison with the feelings and 
sentiments of the people, it has produced surprising effects. 
Many thousands were convinced, and were led to approve and 
long for a separation from the mother country." And Gordon 
says, " No publication has so much promoted the spirit of inde- 
pendency as Common Sense. It has produced most astonishing 
effects." 

The numbers of the Crisis were intended to invigorate the 
spirits of the Americans ; show the necessity of a strict union of 
the states ; the importance of combined operations ; — or ridicule 
the attempts of Great Britain to subjugate this country while so 
united. Among the latter, the one addressed to lord Howe 
stands conspicuous, as a most finished piece of sarcastic rebuke. 



nil A BKlEtf SKETCH OF THE 

Of his European political publications, much has been and 
may be said. That the government of Great Britain was then, 
and is now, corrupt — that the great body of the people are op- 
pressed for the benefit of the few— that the people in fact have 
no influence in the administration ; being always oppressed by a 
large majority of members in both houses of parliament bought 
for the purpose — and that they are borne down to the dust by 
taxation, is well known to those who wish to know it. 

Paine's object was to open the eyes of the people to a proper 
gense of their rights. To prove to them that it was lawful to re- 
move any and every one from office when they ceased to act for 
the good of the community. To show them that a king, if tole- 
rated at all, was the servant of a people,— bound to direct their 
affairs with a view to their best interests, and not waste their 
wealth, and sacrifice their lives, in foreign intrigues and wars, for 
his individual fame. 

That his writings on this subject tended to, and came very near 
producing, a revolution in that country, is certain. And nothing 
but a complete revolution can reinstate the people in their rights. 
Petitions and remonstrances are worse than useless, as has been 
seen in innumerable instances, and among the number, North 
America was one : all the ability of the country was put in requi- 
sition to supplicate for a redress of grievances, and what was the 
result 1 Derision and contempt. Inveterate diseases cannot be 
cured by the application of milk and water ; the remedy must be 
proportioned to their virulence. 



The foregoing, with some slight omissions, is copied from a - 
sketch prefixed to the political writings of Mr. Paine, published 
at Charlestown, Mass. in 1S24. The writer, although he has 
given correct outlines of the author's life, does not seem to be 
aware of the different productions which have appeared upon the 
subject. 

Two impartial memoirs of his life were published in London, 
in 1819, which do ample justice to his character and writings. 
One by W. T. Sherwin, 8vo. pp. 232. The other by Thomas^ 
Clio Rickman, including some miscellaneous pieces of Paine 
8vo. pp. 277. 4m 

Mr. Sherwin makes the following remarks in the preface to 
his work : ^. 

" Two lives of Mr. Paine have already appeared. The first 
of these was published about "twenty-seven years ago, and pur- 
ports to be the production of * Francis Oldys, A. M. of the Uni- 
versity of Philadelphia.' This work, though written with some 
ability, is filled with falsehoods which detect themselves, and 



LIFE OP THOMAS PAINE. 



which, consequently, need no refutation. It is, therefore, only 
necessary to state, that * Francis Oldys' was a fictitious name, 
adopted with no other view than that of giving currency to the 
book ; that the real author was George Chalmers, at that period 
one of the clerks" of the board of plantations ; and that he was 
employed by lord Hawksbury, (now called earl of Liverpool,) to 
write the work, for which he was to receive five hundred pounds, 
in the event of his executing it to the satisfaction of his employer. 
These facts have been admitted by the anonymous assassin, 
Chalmers himself, and they require no comment. 

M The second life of Mr. Paine is the production of an Eng- 
lish emigrant, of the name of Cheetham. This was published 
at New- York, in 1809. The writer, exclusive of his being a 
treacherous apostate, was an illiterate blockhead ; his misrepre- 
sentations have not even the dress of decent language to recom 
mend them, and the frequent contradictions with which the book 
abounds, must entitle it to the contempt of every reader. 

" Such are the persons who have attempted to blacken the re- 
putation of one of the most enlightened and benevolent men that 
ever lived. I trust the reader will find that I have adopted a very 
different course ; that I have paid a scrupulous attention to truth, 
and that, without considering whether it made for or against the 
subject I was writing upon. 

" Nearly ten years have elapsed since the death of Mr. Paine. 
An authentic account of his life cannot, therefore, be considered 
premature. Besides which, it is presumed that the last ten years 
have afforded some opportunities of trying the strength of his 
opinions. The pressure of public calamity has rendered those 
principles popular, which the mere force of reasoning could not ; 
and how r ever gloomy appearances may have hitherto been, there 
is now, it is to be hoped, some prospect that 'truth will force its 
way even to thrones.' " 

It is evident that the writer of the previous sketch had seen 
no other life of our author than the infamous production, above 
noticed, of James Cheetham ; which, although it furnishes dates 
of his publications and eventful periods of his life, falsifies and 
perverts every motive by which he was actuated. Cheetham 
incorporates the fictions of the spurious Francis Oldys, with his 
own farrago of disgusting absurdities. Par nobile fratrum. 

As this work has had an extensive circulation, it will not be 
amiss, that the public may be enabled to estimate his credibility, 
to say a few words respecting the character of this calumniator. 

James Cheetham arrived in this country about six or seven 
years before Mr. Paine's return from France. He had been 
persecuted for some acts hostile to the government, and came 
here a flaming democrat. He was a man of limited education, 
a hatter by trade ; in which business he established himself in 
this city. 

Smarting from the mortification he had met with in his own 

you I. 2 



X A BRIEF SKETCH OF THE 

country, and being naturally vindictive, he entered violently into 
the party squabbles of that day ; and possessing a large share ot 
impudence, joined to talents adapted to abusive personal warfare 
in the conflicts of party, he soon brought himself into some no- 
tice. His having been prosecuted by the government of England 
for political causes, contributed, in some measure, to raise him in 
the estimation of the party to which he attached himself. They 
looked upon him as a persecuted patriot, and felt disposed to 
promote his interest. In fine, David Deniston took him into 
partnership in a newspaper establishment, called " The Citizen. " 
Of this he became the principal editor. 

On Mr. Paine's arrival, he immediately paid his court to him, 
professing to be an enthusiastic admirer of his principles, politi- 
cal and religious. He took an active part in procuring subscri- 
bers to a public dinner, given in honor of Mr. Paine, at the city 
hotel ; and, soon after, invited him, with a number of friends, to 
dine at his own house. 

A friendly intercourse subsisted between them as long as 
Cheetham adhered to the cause he had espoused. But the latter 
was at length induced to turn his malignant pen against the ad- 
ministration of Mr. Jefferson. He attacked the then existing 
embargo, in the most virulent manner, roundly charging the go- 
vernment with being under French influence. 

In consequence of the part taken by him upon this occasion, 
he was expelled from the Tammany Society ; and a public meet- 
ing was called in the Park, of citizens friendly to the measures 
of the government, and his paper was declared to be no longer 
the organ of the republican party. 

Upon this, Cheetham made a most vehement attack upon Mr. 
De Witt Clinton, who, by his own solicitation, had presided at 
that meeting, explicitly charging him with advising the course 
which had led to his degradation. His rage was levelled equally 
against the whole republican party, stigmatizing them, as is the 
custom of vulgar minds, with ridiculous epithets, such as Mart- 
ling-men, from the name of the person who kept the house in 
which they held their meetings, and the place itself, the pig-sty. 

Finding, at length, that his raving produced little effect ; that 
he could induce but few of those with whom he had formerly 
acted to join his standard, and that the party which had acted 
uniformly against the administration of Jefferson, although they 
loved the treason, despised the traitor, he made up his mind to 
return to England ; and was actually, a little before his death, 
making arrangements for that purpose. He declared it to be his 
intention to publish a paper in England, in support of the govern- 
ment against Cobbett, who was then advocating the popular cause. 
To prepare for himself a favorable reception, he affected to pay 
great respect to religion ; which drew from Paine the following 
remark, that " Cheetham was a hypocrite in religion, and a John 
Bull in politics." His abuse of Paine, as he confessed to an 



LIFE OF THOMAS PAINE* XI 

intimate friend, Charles Christian, was with a view of ingratiating 
himself with the court party in England. 

The following facts, place the character of this genuine Iago 
in its true light. 

With a view of injuring the memory of Paine, he takes a cir- 
cuitous course, by impugning the reputation of a lady of his 
acquaintance, Mrs. Bonneville. For this calumny, Mrs. B 
brought an action, in a criminal court, and he was fined $250. 

For political effect, he charged a gentleman with cheating at 
cards ; and, on his trial lor the libel, acknowledged the falsity of 
the charge, and threw himself upon the mercy of the court, plead- 
ing poverty. In this case, h< was mulcted in the sum of $1,000. 

To till up the measure of depravity, and, as it were, to show 
there was no species of baseness to which he would not descend, 
he perpetrated the following out 

For the purpose of producii hostile rencounter between two 
gentlemen, he reiterated for m< h , in bis paper, that one, whom 
he named, was the greatest vill n or the greatest paltroon in 
the state, if he did not demand satisfaction lor the accusations 
brought against, him by tin- otl •', which he specified. He thus, 
in conjunction with Tunis \» i nan, who was employed to write 
a pamphlet to the same import, actually c.-usod the fatal meeting, 
which terminated in the fall of oik- of the parties. Then, Iago- 
like, he dressed his paper in black, the emblem of his heart, and, 
putting a badge of mourning upon his arm, followed the body of 
the deceased to the grave. The villainy and wickedness of this 
course could be equalled only by the conduct of the prompters 
behind the scenes, who, by tampering with the coroner for six 
days in succession, finally coerced the inquest which sat upon 
the case, to return a verdict of murder ! 

No editor of a paper, or party writer, in this country, ever in- 
dulged in personal abuse to a greater extent than James Cheet- 
ham. That Mr. Paine should receive a large share of that 
abuse, will not appear strange to those well acquainted with the 
two characters. Paine, through the course of a long life, never 
swerved, for a moment, from a rigid adhesion to the cause he had 
espoused, the cause of man, the cause of human liberty and jus- 
tice. Cheetham, a renegado in politics, without principle or 
stability of character, whose only tact, as a writer, consisted in 
low vulgar vituperation, in which he has certainly been rivalled 
by few. But, there are testimonies on record of Mr. Paine's 
character and worth, which defy the malice of his enemies to 
invalidate or assail. It is sufficient to notice those of Dr. Rush, 
Joel Barlow, and Thomas Jefferson. To the two former, Cheet- 
ham, when he undertook to write the life of Paine, addressed 
letters requesting information, taking care, at the same time, to 
throw out base insinuations against him, with the hope of draw- 
ing from them an echo of his vile sentiments. He evidently 
expected to coerce them into his views, arrogantly presuming 



X?l A BRIEF SKETCH OF THfc 

they did not possess sufficient moral courage to vindicate the 
man who had met with such unqualified censure from the enemies 
of civil and religious liberty. In this he was mistaken. Mr. 
Barlow's answer contained truths so flattering to the character 
and principles of Paine, as to convince Cheetham that no part of 
it would answer his purpose, and he returned the letter. Dr. 
Rush's answer he incorporated into his tirade against Paine. Dr. 
Rush speaks in the highest terms of commendation of his early 
services to this country in her revolutionary struggle. His hu- 
manity and love of justice first attracted the notice of the Doctor, 
as the following extracts from his letter evince. 

** About the year 1775, (says Dr. Rush,) I met him accident 
ally in Mr. Aitkin's bookstore, and was introduced to him by Mr. 
Aitkin. We conversed a few minutes, when I left him* Soon 
afterwards, I read a short essay, with which I was much pleased, 
in one of Bradford's papers, against the slavery of the Africans 
in our country, and which I was informed was written by Mr 
Paine. This excited my desire to be better acquainted with him 
We met soon afterwards in Mr. Aitkin's bookstore, where I did 
homage to his principles and his pen, upon the subject of the 
enslaved Africans." " I possess one of his letters writ- 
ten to me from France, upon the subject of the abolition of the 
slave trade. An extract from it was published in the Columbian 
Magazine." 

I shall now advert to the letter of Joel Barlow, which Cheet- 
ham rejected, as unsuiting to his purpose, and which gives as fair 
a sketch of the character of Paine, as was probably ever drawn 
of any man. His habits, particularly that of intemperance, which 
has been mainly relied upon by his enemies as affording a subject 
of accusation, has been grossly misrepresented. His uniform 
custom, while he resided on his farm, at New-Rochelle, as his 
farmer attests, was to drink water at dinner, and one common 
tumbler of sweetened rum and water immediately after, and the 
same in the evening. He could, in fact, drink but little ardent 
liquor, without showing its effects ; and when in company, and 
drinking as others did, it would sometimes appear that he was 
disguised by it, whilst his company, who had drank as free as 
himself, would show no signs of inebriety. 

" The very head and front of his offending 
Hath this extent, no more." 

Cheetham writes thus to Barlow : 

" I am preparing to write the life of Thomas Paine. As you 
were acquainted with him in Paris, your opinion of his manners 
and habits, the company he kept, &c. would be very acceptable. 

"He was a great drunkard here, and Mr. M. a merchant of this 
city, who lived with him when he was arrested by order of Robes- 
pierre, tells me he was intoxicated when that event happened." 

What presumption ! He plainly indicated that it was the foi- 
bles of Paine he was hunting for, and not a fair account of his life. 



LIFE OP THOMA8 TAfRfi. XUi 

The following are extracts from Mr. Barlow's answer : 
Sir — I have received your letter, calling for information 
relative to the life of Thomas Paine. It appears to me that this 
is not the moment to publish the life of that man in this country* 
His own writings are his best life, and these are not read at pre- 
sent." 

After some remarks upon the effect produced on the public 
mind by the charges preferred against Paine, of drunkenness and 
want of faith in revelation, he proceeds : 

" The writer of his life who should dwell on these topics to the 
exclusion of the great and estimable traits of his real character, 
might, indeed, please the rabble of the age, who do not know him; 
the book might sell; but it would only tend to render the truth 
more obscure for the future biographer, than it was before. But 
if the present writer should give us Thomas Paine complete, in 
all his character, as one of the most benevolent and disinterested 
of mankind, endowed with the clearest perception, an uncommon 
share of original genius, and the greatest breadth of thought ; if 
this piece of biography should analyze his literary labors, and 
rank him, as he ought to be ranked, among the brightest and 
most undeviating luminaries of the age in which he has lived — » 
yet with a mind assailable by flattery, and receiving through that 
weak side a tincture of vanity which he was too proud to conceal ; 
with a mind, though strong enough to bear him up, and to rise 
elastic under the heaviest hand of oppression, yet unable to 
endure the contempt of his former friends and fellow laborers, the 
rulers of the country that had received his first and greatest ser- 
vices — a mind incapable of looking down with serene compas- 
sion as it ought, on the rude scoffs of their imitators, a new 

generation that knows him not." *' If you are disposed and 

prepared to write his life thus entire, to fill up the picture to which 
these hasty strokes of outline give but a rude sketch with great 
vacuities, your book maybe a useful one." 

11 The biographer of Thomas Paine, should not forget his 
mathematical acquirements, and his mechanical genius. His 
invention of the iron bridge, which led him to Europe in the year 
1787, has procured him a great reputation in that branch of sci- 
ence in France and England, in both which countries his bridge 
has been adopted in many instances, and is now much in use. 

" You ask whether he took an oath of allegiance to France. 
Doubtless the qualification to be a member of the convention* 
required an oath of fidelity to that country, but involved in it no 
abjuration of his fidelity to this. He was made a French citizen 
by the same decree with Washington, Hamilton, Priestly, and 
sir James Mackintosh, 

" What Mr. M. has told you relative to the circumstances of his 
arrestation by order of Robespierre, is erroneous, at least in one 
point. Paine did not lodge at the nous?, where he was arrested, 
but had been dining there with some Americans. I never heard 



tlV A BRIEF SKETCH OP THB 

before, that Paine was intoxicated that night. Indeed, the officers 
brought him directly to my house. He was not intoxicated when 
they came to me. Their object was to get me to go and assist 
them to examine Paine's papers. It employed us the rest of 
that night, and the whole of the next day, at Paine's lodgings ; 
and he was not committed to prison till the next evening." 

" It is said he was always a peevish inmate — this is possible. 
So was Laurence Sterne, so was Torquato Tasso, so was J. J. 
Rousseau — but Thomas Paine, as a visiting acquaintance, and 
as a literary friend, the only points of view in which I knew him, 
was one of the most instructive men I have ever known. He 
had a surprising memory and brilliant fancy ; his mind was a 
store-house of facts and useful observations; he was full of 
lively anecdote, and ingenious original pertinent remark, upon 
almost every subject. He was always charitable to the poor 
beyond his means, a sure protector and friend to all Americans 
in distress that he found in foreign countries. And he had fre- 
quent occasions to exert his influence in protecting them during 
the revolution in France. His writings will answer for his pat- 
riotism, and his entire devotion to what >*e conceived to be the 
best interest and happiness of mankind. 

" As to his religious opinions, as they were those of probably 
three-fourths of the men of letters of the last age, and of nearly 
all those of the present, I see no reason why they should form a 
distinctive character in him." 

I happen to know something of the Mr. M. mentioned above, 
whose testimony Mr. Barlow proves to be false. It is in this 
way that Cheetham collected stories injurious to the character of 
Paine. Mr. M. was an English speculator in France, in the 
time of the revolution, and was once imprisoned, no doubt justly, 
as a spy. His enmity to Paine and the principles for which France 
was contending, I am confident, from my knowledge of the man, 
would induce him to fabricate any story, calculated to throw 
obloquy upon either. 

The last paragraph in the first edition of the above letter, was 
omitted by request of the gentleman who furnished it. The 
editor, however, believing the sentiment to be just, particularly as 
it was advanced by Mr. Barlow, who had had so great an oppor- 
tunity to know the fact, inserted the purport of it, in a note, 
although not exactly correct in the style. It is now corrected by 
the gentleman who has in his possession the original letter. 

Cheetham, in his life of Paine, see page 177, comments, in his 
usual disingenuous manner, upon the opinion advanced by Bar- 
low, as well as the deistical writings of Paine. Paine was a 
religious deist, believing in one God, the creator and governor of 
the universe ; and so tenacious was he of this opinion, that, as 
John Stuart, the pedestrian traveller, told "me, he was denomina- 
ted a superstitious man, in a philosophical club, in London, of 
which he was a member Cheetham, on the contrary, according 



LIFE OF THOMAS PAINE. XV 

to William Carver's account, who was very intimate with him, 
was an atheist, believing in no God. 

Mr. Carver has just handed me a copy of Cheetham's life of 
Paine, in which he has written on a blank leaf the following, 
which he requests me to publish in this work : 

"Being one night at Cheetham's house, he said to me, ' Car- 
ver, I believe you have read many good authors, but there is one 
on the Fable that surpasses all of them. It is Mirabaud's 
* System of Nature.' It never was, never can, nor ever will 
be answered.' I told him I had read it in four volumes. — I 
firmly believe that Cheetham was an atheist. He was an unedu- 
cated man ; nature, however, had given him excellent talents, but 
he turned an apostate and liar. — I once told him, in his own 
house, that I believed he had his hands crossed with British gold. 
A gentleman present- (Charles Christian) observed, 'that is a 
bold attack ;' Cheetham replied, ■ Carver will contradict a judge 
on the bench, when he thinks him in the wrong.' " 

WILLIAM CARVER. 

Mr. Carver has made many annotations in the margin of his 
copy of Paine's life, charging the biographer with giving state- 
ments which, to his knowledge, were utterly false. 

This is the man that reprobates Paine's deistical principles, 
and prates about moral conduct ; and thus have the virtuous, 
honest inquirers after truth, been insulted and imposed upon by 
designing knaves and impostors. 

I will not follow the example of Mr. Cheetham, by entering 
into an examination of his domestic character ; his public po- 
litical sins are the only legitimate objects of disquisition. 

I would not be understood as approving or condemning Mr. 
Paine's religious opinions ; whatever they were, he had as good 
a right to maintain them, as any other sectarian whatever. 

The following short letter from Mr. Jefferson fully conveys his 
opinion of the merits and services of Thomas Paine, to whom it 
was addressed : 

" You expressed a wish in your letter to return to America by 
a national ship. Mr. Dawson, who brings over the treaty, and 
who will present you with this letter, is charged with orders to the 
captain of the Maryland, to receive and accommodate you back, 
if you can be ready to depart at such a short warning. You will 
in general find us returned to sentiments worthy of former times ; 
in these it will be your glory to have steadily labored, and with 
as much effect as any man living. That you may live long to 
continue your useful labors, and reap the reward in the thankful- 
ness of nations, is my sincere prayer. Accept the assurance of 
my high esteem and affectionate attachment." 

Among other falsehoods that have been published respecting 
Paine, it has heen asserted, that in the latter part of his life, be 



Xvi A BRIEF SKETCH OP THE, StC. 

was in great distress for want of the means of subsistence It is 
proper, therefore, to state, that at his death he possessed a farm 
in New-Rochelle valued at 10,000 dollars, and thirty shares in 
the New-York Phoenix Insurance Company, worth about 1500 
dollars, which he devised by his will to various persons. 

44 It is somewhat singular," says Mr. Sherwin, 4< that so great a 
length of time should have elapsed since the death of Mr. Paine, 
without a single author, either in Europe or America, attempting 
to give an impartial and faithful account of his life. Different 
reasons may be assigned for the silence of his English admirers, 
but in the land of freedom, in the land where his principles have 
flourished and triumphed, in the land which almost owes its form of 
government to his genius, a person would have thought that some 
honest biographer would have raised an avenging pen against the 
calumniators who have endeavored to blacken his name. In a 
country where literature is a real republic, where the press is 
neither shackled by despotic laws nor corrupted by treacherous 
ministers, we are naturally led to suppose that tyranny would 
scarcly have found a supporter, or superstition an advocate. But 
the silence which has been observed towards the falsehoods that 
have been propagated against the character of Mr. Paine, is a 
proof that letters way be venal without being corrupt." 

EDITOR, 






INTRODUCTION. 



Perhaps the sentiments contained in the following pages, are 
not yet sufficiently fashionable to procure them general favor ; a 
long habit of not thinking a thing wrong, gives it a superficial 
appearance of being right, and raises at first a formidable out- 
cry in defence of custom. But the tumult soon subsides, Time 
makes more converts than reason. 

As a long and violent abuse of power is generally the means 
of calling the right of it in question, (and in matters too which 
might never have been thought of, had not the sufferers been 
aggravated into the inquiry,) and as the king of England hath 
undertaken in his own right, to support the parliament in what 
he calls theirs, and as the good people of this country are griev- 
ously oppressed by the combination, they have an undoubted 
privilege to inquire into the pretensions of both, and equally 
to reject the usurpations of either. 

In the following sheets, the author hath studiously avoided 
every thing which is personal among ourselves. Compliments 
as well as censure to individuals make no part thereof. The 
wise and the worthy need not the triumph of a pamphlet ; and 
those whose sentiments are injudicious or unfriendly, will cease 
of themselves, unless too much pains is bestowed upon their 
conversion. 

The cause of America is, in a great measure, the cause 
of all mankind. Many circumstances have, and will arise, 
which are not local, but universal, and through which the princi* 
pies of all lovers of mankind are affected, and in the event of 
which, their affections are interested. The laying a countoy 



vol, I, 



3 



XVM INTRODUCTION. 

desolate with fire and sword, declaring war against the natural 
rights of all mankind, and extirpating the defenders thereof from 
the face of the earth, is the concern of every man to whom na- 
ture hath given the power of feeling ; of which class, regardless 
of party censure, is 

THE AUTHOR. 
Philadelphia, Feb, 14, 1776. 



COMMON SENSE, 



ON THE ORIGIN AND D* "1GN OF GOVERNMENT IN 

GENERAL, WITH C< NCISE REMARKS ON 

THE ENGLISH CONSTITUTION. 



Some writers have so confounded society with government, 
as to leave little or no distinction between them ; whereas 
they are not only different, but have different origins. Society is 
produced by our wants, and government by our wickedness; 
the former promotes our happiness positively by uniting our 
affections, the latter negatively by restraining our vices. The 
one encourages intercourse, the other creates distinctions. The 
first is a patron, the last is a punisher. 

Society in every state is a blessing, but government, even in 
its best state, is but a necessary evil ; in its worst state an into- 
lerable one ; for when we suffer, or are exposed to the same 
miseries by a government, which we might expect in a country 
without government, our calamity is heightened by reflecting that 
we furnish the means by which we suffer. Government, like 
dress, is the badge of lost innocence ; the palaces of kings are 
built upon the ruins of the bowers of paradise. For were the 
impulses of conscience clear, uniform and irresistibly obeyed, 
man would need no other lawgiver ; but that not being the 
case, he finds it necessary to surrender up a part of his property 
to furnish means for the protection of the rest ; and this he is 
induced to do by the same prudence which in every other case 
advises him out of two evils to choose the least. Wherefore, 
security being the true design and end of government, it unan- 
swerably follows that whatever form thereof appears most likely 
to ensure it to us, with the least expence and greatest benefit, 
is preferable to all others. 



20 



COMMON SENSE. 



In order to gain a clear and just idea of the design and end 
of government let us suppose a small number of persons settled 
»i some sequestered part of the earth, unconnected with the 
Fest, they will then represent the first peopling Of any country* 
or of the world. Irt this state of natural liberty, society will be 
their first thought. A thousand motives will excite them thereto ; 
the strength of one man is so unequal to his wants, and his mind 
so unfitted for perpetual solitude, that he is soon obliged to seek 
assistance and relief of another, who in his turn requires the 
same. Four or five united, would be able to raise a tolerable 
dwelling in the midst of a wilderness, but one man might labour 
Out the common period of life without accomplishing any thing ; 
when he had felled his timber he could not remove it, nor erect 
it after it was removed ; hunger in the mean time would urge him 
from his work, and every different want would call him a different 
way. Disease, nay even misfortune, would be death, for though 
neither might be mortal, yet either would disable him from living, 
and reduce him to a state in which he might rather be said 
to perish than to die. 

Thus necessity, like a gravitating power, would soon form our 
newly arrived emigrants into society, the reciprocal blessings 
of which, would supercede, and render the obligations of law 
and government unnecessary while they remained perfectly just 
to each other ; but as nothing but heaven is impregnable to 
vice, it will unavoidably happen, that in proportion as they sur- 
mount the first difficulties of emigration, which bound them 
together in a common cause, they will begin to relax in their 
duty and attachment to each other ; and this remissness will 
point out the necessity of establishing some form of govern- 
ment to supply the defect of moral virtue. 

Some convenient tree will afford them a state-house, under 
the branches of which the whole colony may assemble to delibe- 
rate on public matters. It is more than probable that their first 
laws will have the title 01 ly of Regulations, and be enforced by 
no other penalty than public disesteem. In this first parliament 
every man by natural right will have a seat. 

But as the colony increases, the public concerns will increase 
likewise, and the distance at which the members may be sepa- 
rated, will render it too inconvenient for all of them to meet 
on every occasion as at first, when their number was small, 



COMMON SENSE. 21 

their habitations near, and the public concerns few and trifling. 
This will point out the convenience of their consenting to leave 
the legislative part to be managed by a select number chosen 
from the whole body, who are supposed to have the same con- 
cerns at stake which those have who appointed them, and who will 
act in the same manner as the whole body would were they pre 
sent. If the colony continue increasing, it will become necessary 
to augment the number of representatives, and that the interest of 
every part of the colony may be attended to, it will be found best 
to divide the whole into convenient parts, each part sending it3 
proper number ; and that the elected might never form to them- 
selves an interest separate from the electors, prudence will point 
out the propriety of having elections often : because as the elected 
might by that means return and mix again with the general body 
of the electors, in a few months, their fidelity to the public will be 
secured by the prudent reflection of not making a rod for them- 
selves. And as this frequent interchange will establish a common 
interest with every part of the community, they will mutually and 
naturally support each other, and on this, (not on the unmeaning 
name of King,) depends the strength of government and the hap- 
piness of the governed. 

Here, then, is the origin and rise of government; namely, a mode 
rendered necessary by the inability of moral virtue to govern the 
world ; here too is the design and end of government, viz. freedom 
and security. And however our eyes may be dazzled with show, 
or our ears deceived by sound ; however prejudice may warp our 
wills, or interest darken our understanding, the simple voice of na- 
ture and reason will say, it is right. 

I draw my idea of the form of government from a principle in 
nature, which no art can overturn, viz. that the more simple any 
thing is, the less liable it is to be disordered ; and the easier re- 
paired when disordered ; and with this maxim in view, I offer a few 
remarks on the so much boasted constitution of England. That it 
was noble for the dark and slavish times in which it was erected, is 
granted. When the world was overrun with tyranny the least re- 
move therefrom was a glorious rescue. But that it is imperfect, 
subject to convulsions, and incapable of producing what it seems 
to promise is easily demonstrated. 

Absolute governments, (though the disgrace of human nature,) 
have this advantage with them that they are simple ; if the people 



22 COMMON SENSE. 

suffer, they know the head from which their suffering springs, 
know likewise the remedy, and are not bewildered by a variety 
of causes and cures. But the constitution of England is so 
exceedingly complex, that the nation may suffer for years to- 
gether without being able to discover in which part the fault 
lies, some will say in one and some in another, and every political 
physician will advise a different medicine. 

I know it is difficult to get over local or long standing prejudices, 
yet if we will suffer ourselves to examine the component parts of 
the English constitution, we shall find them to be the base remains 
of two ancient tyrannies, compounded with some new republican 
materials. 

First. — The remains of monarchical tyranny in the person 
of the king. 

Secondly. — The remains of aristocratical tyranny in the persons 
of the peers. 

- Thirdly. — The new republican materials, in the persons of the 
commons, on whose virtue depends the freedom of England. 

The two first, by being hereditary, are independent of the people; 
wherefore in a constitutional sense they contribute nothing towards 
the freedom of the state. 

To say that the constitution of England is a union of three 
powers, reciprocally checking each other, is farcical, either the 
words have no meaning, or they are flat contradictions. 

To say that the commons is a check upon the king, presupposes 
two things. 

First. — That the king is not to be trusted without being looked 
after, or in other words, that a thirst for absolute power, is the na- 
tural disease of monarchy. 

Secondly. — That the commons by being appointed for that pur- 
pose, are either wiser or more worthy of confidence than the 
crown. 

But as the same constitution which gives the commons a power 
to check the king by withholding the supplies, gives afterwards the 
king a power to check the commons, by empowering him to reject 
their other bills; it again supposes that the kin4 is wiser than 
those whom it has already supposed to be wiser than him. A 
mere absurdity ! 

There is something exceedingly ridiculous in the composition 
of monarchy ; it first excludes a man from the means of infor- 



COMMON SENSE. 23 

mation, yet empowers him to act in cases where the highest judg- 
ment is required. The state of a king shuts him from the world, 
yet the business of a king requires him to know it thoroughly ; 
wherefore the different parts, by unnaturally opposing and de- 
stroying each other, prove the whole character to be absurd and 
useless. 

Some writers have explained the English constitution thus ; 
the king, say they, is one, the people another ; the peers are 
a house in behalf of the king ; the commons in behalf of the 
people ; but this hath all the distinctions of a house divided against 
itself; and though the expressions be pleasantly arranged, yet 
when examined they appear idle and ambiguous ; and it will 
always happen, that the nicest construction that words are capa- 
bta of, when applied to the description of something which either 
cannot exist, or is too incomprehensible to be within the compass 
of description, will be words of sound only, and though they 
may amuse the ear, they cannot inform the mind, for this ex- 
planation includes a previous question, viz. How came the king 
brj a power which the people are afraid to trust, and always obliged 
to check ? Such a power could not be the gift of a wise people, 
neither can any power, which needs checking, be from God ; yet 
the provision, which the constitution makes, supposes such a pow- 
er to exist. 

But the provision is unequal to the task ; the means either can- 
not or will not accomplish the end, and the whole affair is afelo 
de se ; for as the greater weight will always carry up the less, 
and as all the wheels of a machine are put in motion by one, it 
only remains to know which power in the constitution has the 
most weight, for that will govern ; and though the others, or a 
part of them, may clog, or, as the phrase is, check the rapidity 
of its motion, yet so long as they cannot stop it, their endeavours 
will be ineffectual ; the first moving power will at last have its 
way, and what it wants in speed is supplied by time. 

That the crown is this overbearing part in the English constitu- 
tion needs not be mentioned, and that it derives its whole con- 
sequence merely from being the giver of places and pensions 
is self-evident, wherefore, though we have been wise enough 
to shut and lock a door against absolute monarchy, we at the 
same time have been foolish enough to put the crown in posses- 
sion of the key. 



24 COMMON SENSE. 

The prejudice of Englishmen, in favour of their own govern 
ment, by king lords and commons, arises as much or more from 
national pride than reason. Individuals are undoubtedly safer 
in England than in some other countries, but the will of the 
king is as much the law of the land in Britain as in France, 
with this difference, that instead of proceeding directly from his 
mouth, it is handed to the people under the formidable shape 
of an act of parliament. For the fate of Charles the First hath 
only made kings more subtle — not more just. 

Wherefore, laying aside all national pride and prejudice in fa 
vour of modes and forms, the plain truth is that it is wholly 
owing to the constitution of the people, and not the constitution 
of the government that the crown is not as oppressive in England 
as in Turkey. 

An inquiry into the constitutional errors in the English form of 
government is at this time highly necessary ; for as we are never 
in a proper condition of doing justice to others, while we continue 
under the influence of some leading partiality, so neither are we 
capable of doing it to ourselves while we remain fettered by any 
obstinate prejudice. And as a man, who is attached to a prosti- 
tute, is unfitted to choose or judge of a wife, so any prepossession 
in favour of a rotten constitution of government will disable us 
from discerning a good one. 



>oJo< 



OF MONARCHY AND HEREDITARY SUCCESSION, 

Mankind being originally equals in the order of creation, the 
equality could only be destroyed by some subsequent circum- 
stance ; the distinctions of rich and poor, may in a great measure 
be accounted for, and that without having recourse to the harsh ill 
sounding names of avarice and oppression. Oppression is often 
the consequence, but seldom or never the means of riches ; and 
though avarice will preserve a man from being necessitously poor, 
it generally makes him too timorous to be wealthy. 

But there is another and greater distinction for which no truly 
natural or religious reason can be assigned, and that is the dis- 



COMMON SENSE. 25 

tinction of men into kings and subjects. Male and fe- 
male are the distinctions of nature, good and bad, the distinc- 
tions of heaven ; but how a race of men came into the world so 
exalted above the rest, and distinguished like some new spe- 
cies, is worth inquiring into, and whether they are the means of 
happiness or of misery to mankind. 

In the early ages of the world, according to the scripture chro- 
nology, there were no kings ; the consequence of which was there 
were no wars ; it is the pride of kings which throws mankind into 
confusion. Holland, without a king, hath enjoyed more peace 
for the last century than any of the monarchical governments 
of Europe. Antiquity favours the same remark ; for the quiet 
and rural lives of the first patriarchs have a happy something 
in them, which vanishes when we come to the history of Jewish 
royalty. 

Government by kings was first introduced into the world by the 
Heathens, from whom the children of Israel copied the custom. It 
was the most prosperous invention that was ever set on foot for the 
promotion of Idolatry. The heathen paid divine honours to their 
deceased kings, and the Christian world hath improved on the 
plan by doing the same to their living ones. How impious is the 
title of sacred majesty applied to a worm, who in the midst of 
his splendor is crumbling into dust ! 

As the exulting one man so greatly above the rest, cannot be 
justified on the equal rights of nature, so neither can it be defended 
on the authority of Scripture ; for the will of the Almighty as 
declared by Gideon, and the prophet Samuel, expressly disap- 
proves of government by kings. All anti-monarchical parts of 
Scripture, have been very smoothly glossed over in monarchical 
governments, but they undoubtedly merit the attention of coun- 
tries, which have their governments yet to form. Render unto 
Cesar the things which are Cesar' s^ is the scripture doctrine 
of courts, yet it is no support of monarchical government, for 
the Jews at that time were without a king, and in a state of vas- 
salage to the Romans. 

Near three thousand years passed away from the Mosaic ac- 
count of the creation, till the Jews, under a national delusion, 
requested a king. Till then their form of government (except 
in extraordinary cases, where the Almighty interposed) was a 
kind of republic, administered by a judge and the elders of t\\Q 

vol. i. 4 



26 COMMON SENSE. 

tribes. Kings they had none, and it was held sinful to acknow- 
ledge any being under that title but the Lord of Hosts. And 
when a man seriously reflects on the idolatrous homage which is 
paid to the persons of kings he need not wonder that the Almighty, 
ever jealous of his honor, should disapprove a form of government 
which so impiously invades the prerogative of heaven. 

Monarchy is ranked in scripture as one of the sins of the Jews, 
for which a curse in reserve is denounced against them. The his- 
tory of that transaction is worth attending to. 

The children of Israel being oppressed by the Midianites, Gideon 
marched against them with a small army, and victory, through the 
divine interposition, decided in his favor. The Jews, elate with 
success, and attributing it to the generalship of Gideon, pro- 
posed making him a king, saying, Rule thou over us, thou and thy 
son, and thy son's son. Here was temptation in its fullest extent ; 
not a kingdom only, but an hereditary one, but Gideon in the piety 
of his soul replied, I will not rule over you, neither shall my son rule 
over you, THE LORD SHALL RULE OYER YOU. Words 
need not be more explicit ; Gideon doth not decline the honor, but 
denieth their right to give it ; neither doth he compliment them 
with invented declarations of his thanks, but in the positive style 
of a Prophet charges them with disaffection to their proper Sov- 
ereign, the King of heaven. 

About one hundred years after this, they fell again into the same 
error. The hankering which the Jews had for the idolatrous cus- 
toms of the Heathens, is something exceedingly unaccountable ; 
but so it was, that laying hold of the misconduct of Samuel's two 
sons, who were intrusted with some secular concerns, they came 
in an abrupt and clamorous manner to Samuel, saying, Behold 
thou art old, and thy sons walk not in thy ways, now make us a king 
io judge us like all the other nations. And here we cannot, but ob- 
serve that their motives were bad, viz. that they might be like unto 
other nations, i. e. the Heathen, whereas their true glory lay in 
being as much unlike them as possible. But the thing displeased 
Samuel when they said, Give us a king to judge us ; and Samuel 
prayed unto the Lord, and the Lord said unto Samuel, Hearken 
unto the voice of the people in all that they say unto thee, for they 
have not rejected thee, but they have rejected me, THAT I 
SHOULD NOT REIGN OYER THEM. According to all 
the works which they have done since the day that I broH them up 



C0MB10N SENSE. 



27 



out of Egypt, even unto this day ; wherewith they have forsaken 
me, and served other Gods ; so do they also unto thee. Now there 
fore hearken unto their voice, howbeit, protest solemnly unto them 
and show them the manner of the king that shall reign over them, 
i. e. not of any particular king, but the general manner of the 
kings of the earth, whom Israel was so eagerly copying after. 
And notwithstanding the great distance of time and difference 
of manners, the character is still in fashion. And Samuel told all 
(he words of the Lord unto the people, that asked of him a king. 
And he said, This shall be the manner of the king that shall reign 
over you; he will take your sons and appoint them for himself, for 
his chariots, and to be his horsemen, and some shall run before 
his chariots (this description agrees with the present mode of im- 
pressing men) and he will appoint him captains over thousands , 
and captains over fifties, and will set them to ear his ground and 
to reap his harvest, and to make his instruments of ivar, and in- 
struments of his chariots ; and he will take your daughters to 
be confectionaries, and to be cooks and to be bakers (this describes 
the expense and luxury as well as the oppression of kings) and he 
will take your fields and your olive yards, even the best of them, and 
give them to his servants ; and he will take the tenth of your seed, 
and of your vineyards, and give them to his officers and to his 
servants (by which we see that bribery, corruption, and favoritism, 
are the standing vices of kings) and he tvill take the tenth of your 
men servants, and your maid servants, and your goodliest young 
men, and your asses, and put them to his tuork : and he will take 
the tenth of your sheep, and ye shcdl be his servants, and ye shall 
cry out in that day because of your king which ye shall have chosen, 
AND THE LORD WILL NOT HEAR YOU IN THAT 
DAY. This accounts for the continuation of monarchy ; nei- 
ther do the characters of the few good kings which have lived since, 
either sanctify the title, or blot out the sinfulness of the origin : 
the high encomium given of David takes no notice of him officially 
as a king, but only as a man after God's own heart. Nevertheless 
the people refused to obey the voice of Samuel, and they said, Nay, 
but we will have a king over us, that we may be like all the nations, 
and that our king may judge us % and go out before us and fight 
our battles. Samuel continued to reason with them, but to no 
purpose ; he set before them their ingratitude, but all would not 
avail ; and seeing them fully bent on their folly, he cried out, I will 



53 eoMMoK sSNSfc. 

call unto the Lord, and he shall send thunder and rain 
(which was then a punishment, being in the time of wheat 
harvest) that ye may perceive and see that your wickedness 
is great which ye have done in the sight of the Lord, IN 
ASKING YOU A KING. So Samuel called unto the Lord, 
and the Lord sent thunder and rain that day, and all the people 
greatly feared the Lord and SamueL And all the people said un- 
to Samuel) Pray for thy servants unto the Lord thy God that we 
die not, for WE HAVE ADDED UNTO OUR SINS THIS 
EVIL, TO ASK A KING. These portions of scripture are 
direct and positive. They admit of no equivocal construction. 
That the Almighty hath here entered his protest against monarch- 
ical government is true, or the scripture is false. And a man 
hath good reason to believe that there is as much of kingcraft, as 
priestcraft in withholding the scripture from the public in Popish 
countries. For monarchy in every instance is the Popery of 
government. 

To the evil of monarchy we have added that of hereditary 
succession ; and as the first is a degradation and lessening of 
ourselves, so the second, claimed as a matter of right, is an insult 
and imposition on posterity. For all men being originally 
equals, no one by birth, could have a right to set up his own 
family, in perpetual preference to all others for ever, and though 
himself might deserve some decent degree of honours of his cotem- 
poraries, yet his descendants might be far too unworthy to inherit 
them. One of the strongest natural proofs of the folly of heredi- 
tary right in Kings, is that nature disapproves it, otherwise she 
would not so frequently turn it into ridicule, by giving mankind 
an Ass for a Lion. 

Secondly, as no man at first could possess more public 
honors than were bestowed upon him, so the givers of those 
honors could have no power to give away the right of posterity, 
and though they might say " We choose you for our head," they 
could not, without manifest injustice to their children, say " that 
your children and your children's children shall reign over ours 
for ever. Because such an unwise, unjust, unnatural compact 
might, (perhaps) in the next succession put them under the govern- 
ment of a rogue, or a fool. Most wise men in their private sen- 
timents, have ever treated hereditary right with contempt ; yet 
it is one of those evils, which when once established is not easily 



COMMON SENSE. 29 

removed ; many submit from fear, others from superstition, and the 
more powerful part shares, with the king, the plunder of the rest. 

This is supposing the present race of kings in the world to 
have had an honourable origin ; whereas it is more than probable, 
that could we take off the dark covering of antiquity, and trace 
them to their first rise* we should find the first of them nothing 
better than the principal ruffian of some restless gang, whose 
savage manners, or pre-eminence in subtilty obtained him the 
title of chief among plunderers; and who by increasing in power, 
and extending his depredations, overawed the quiet and defence- 
less to purchase their safety by frequent contributions. Yet his 
electors could have no idea of giving hereditary right to his descen- 
dants, because such a perpetual exclusion of themselves was 
incompatible with the free and unrestrained principles they pro- 
fessed to live by. Wherefore, hereditary succession in the early 
ages of monarchy could not take place as a matter of claim, but 
as something casual or complimental; but as few or no records 
were extant in those days, and traditionary history stuffed with 
fables, it was very easy, after the lapse of a few generations, to 
trump up some superstitious tale, conveniently timed Mahomet 
like, to cram hereditary rights down the throats of the vulgar. 
Perhaps the disorders which threatened, or seemed to threaten, 
on the decease of a leader and the choice of a new one (for elec- 
tions among ruffians could not be very orderly) induced many at 
first to favor hereditary pretensions ; by which means it happened, 
as it hath happened since, that what at first was submitted to 
as r convenience, was afterwards claimed as a right. 

England, since the conquest, hath known some few good mon- 
archs, but groaned beneath a much larger number of bad ones; 
yet no man in his senses can say that their claim under William 
the Conqueror is a very honorable one. A French bastard landing 
with an armed banditti, and establishing himself king of England 
against the consent of the natives, is in plain terms a very paltry 
rascally original. — It certainly hath no divinity in it. However, 
it is needless to spend much time in exposing the folly of heredita- 
ry right, if there are any so weak as to believe it, let them promis- 
cuously worship the ass and the lion, and welcome. I shall neither 
copy their humility, nor disturb their devotion. 

Yet I should be glad to ask how they suppose kings came at 



30 COMMON SENSE. 

first? The question admits but of three answers, viz. either by let, 
by election, or by usurpation. If the first king was taken by lot, 
it establishes a precedent for the next, which excludes hereditary 
succession. Saul was by lot, yet the succession was not heredi- 
tary, neither does it appear from that transaction that there was any 
intention it ever should. If the first king of any country was by 
election, that likewise establishes a precedent for the next ; for to 
say, that the right of all future generations is taken away, by the 
act of the first electors, in their choice not only of a king, but of a 
family of kings for ever, hath no parallel in or out of scripture 
but the doctrine of original sin, which supposes the free will of all 
men lost in Adam ; and from such comparison, and it will admit 
of no other, hereditary succession can derive no glory. For as iu 
Adam all sinned, and as in the first electors all men obeyed ; as 
in the one all mankind were subjected to Satan, and in the other 
tosovereignty ; as our innocence was lost in the first, and our au- 
thority in the last ; and as both disable us from re-assuming some 
former state and privilege, it unanswerably follows that original 
sin and hereditary succession are parallels. Dishonourabie 
rank ! Inglorious connection ! Yet the most subtile sophist can- 
not produce a juster simile. 

As to usurpation, no man will be so hardy as to defend it ; and 
that William the Conqueror was an usurper is a fact not to be 
contradicted. The plain truth is, that the antiquity of English 
monarchy will not bear looking into. 

But it is not so much the absurdity as the evil of hereditary 
succession which concerns mankind. Did it ensure a race of 
good and wise men it would have the seal of divine authority, but 
as it opens a door to the foolish, the inched, and the improper, 
it hath in it the nature of oppression. Men who look upon them- 
selves born to reign, and others to obey, soon grow insolent ; 
selected from the rest of mankind their minds are early poisoned 
by importance ; and the world they act in differs so materially 
from the world at large, that they have but little opportunity of 
knowing its true interests, and when they succeed to the govern- 
ment are frequently the most ignorant and unfit of any through- 
out the dominions. 

Another evil which attends hereditary succession is, that the 
throne is subject to be possessed by a minor at any age ; all 



COMMON SENSE. 31 

which time the regency acting under the cover of a king, have 
every opportunity and inducement to betray their trust. The same 
national misfortune happens, when a king worn out with age and 
infirmity, enters the last stage of human weakness. In both these 
cases the public becomes the prey to every miscreant, who can 
tamper successfully with the follies either of age or infancy. 

The most plausible plea, which hath ever been offered in favor 
of hereditary s n is, that it preserves a nation from civil 

Avars: and were this true, it would be weighty ; whereas, it is 
the most bare-faced falsity ever imposed upon mankind. The 
whole history of England disowns the fact. Thirty kings and 
two minors !, i »d in that distract id kingdom since the 

conquest, in which time there bave been includin ; \Ur revolution) 
no less than < >i ;' i civil wars and nineteen -. Wherefore 

instead of making for peace* ii n nst it, and destroys the 

very foundation it s i I. 

Tiie contest for monarchy and louses 

of fork and I .. land in a d for many 

years. T skirmishes and si 

were fought between Henry and Edward, twice was Henry pri- 
soner to Edward, who in his turn lenry. And ^o 
uncertain is the fate of war and the temper of a nation, when no- 
thing but personal 1 >und of a quarrel, that Henry 
was token in triumph from a pri i 1 Edward ob- 
liged to fly from a p . ' len tran 
sHiona of temp ry in his turn was driven 
from th : throne, a i icd him. The par- 
liament always following the 

This contest b< ;aninth reign of H a, and was no' 

entirely extinguished till Henry the Seventh, in whom the families 
were united. Including a period of 67 years, viz. from 1422 to 
1489. 

In short, monarchy and si i have laid (not this or that 

kingdom only,) but, the world in blood and ashes. 'Tis a form 
of government which the word of God bears testimony against, 
and blood will attend it. 

If we inquire into the business of a king, we shall find (and 
in some countries they have none) that after sauntering away 
their lives without pleasure to themselves or advantage to the 



82 COMMON SENSE. 

nation, they withdraw from the scene, and leave their successors 
to tread the same useless and idle round. In absolute monarchies 
the whole weight of business, civil and military, lies on the king ; 
the children of Israel in their request for a king urged this 
plea, " that he may judge us, and go out before us and fight 
our battles." But in countries were he is neither a judge nor a 
general, as in England, a man would be puzzled to know what is 
his business. 

The nearer any government approaches to a republic, the less 
business there is for a king. It is somewhat difficult to find 
a proper name for the government of England. Sir William 
Meredith calls it a republic ; but in its present state it is unworthy 
of the name, because the corrupt influence of the crown, by 
having all the places at its disposal, hath so effectually swallowed 
up the power, and eaten out the virtue of the house of commons 
(the republican part in the constitution) that the government of 
England is nearly as monarchical as that of France or Spain. 
Men fall out with names without understanding them. For it is 
the republican and not the monarchical part of the constitution 
of England which Englishmen glory in, viz. the liberty of choosing 
a house of commons from out of their own body — and it is 
easy to see that when republican virtue fails, slavery ensues. Why 
is the constitution of England sickly, but because monarchy hath 
poisoned the republic, the crown hath engrossed the commons. 

In England a king hath little more to do than to make war and 
give away places ; which, in plain terms, is to impoverish the 
nation and set it together by the ears. A pretty business indeed 
for a man to be allowed eight hundred thousand sterling a year 
for, and worshipped into the bargain ! Of more worth is one 
honest man to society, and in the sight of God, than all the 
crowned ruffians that ever lived, 



COMMON SENSE. 33 

THOUGHTS ON THE PRESENT STATE OF THE 
AMERICAN AFFAIRS, 

In the following pages I offer nothing more than simple facts, 
plain arguments, and common sense ; and have no other prelimi- 
naries to settle with the reader, than that he will divest himself 01 
prejudice and prepossession, and suffer his reason and his feelings 
to determine for themselves ; that he will put on, or rather that 
he will not put off the true character of a man, and generously 
enlarge his views beyond the present day. 

Volumes have been written on the subject of the struggle be. 
tween England and America. Men of all ranks have embarked 
in the controversy, from different motives, and with various designs: 
but all have been ineffectual, and the period of debate is closed. 
Arms, as the last resource, must decide the contest ; the appeal was 
the choice of the king, and the continent hath accepted the dial* 
Jenge, 

It has been reported of the late Mr. Pelham (who, though an 
able minister was not without his faults) that on his being attacked 
in the house of commons, on the score, that his measures were 
only of a temporary kind, replied " they will last mij time.* 9 Should 
a thought so fatal and unmanly possess the colonies in the present 
contest, the name of ancestors will be remembered by future ge 
aerations with detestation. 

The sun never shone on a cause of greater worth, 'Tis not 
the affair of a city, a county, a province, or a kingdom, but of a 
continent — of at least one eighth part of the habitable globe, 
'Tis not the concern of a day, a year, or an age ; posterity are 
virtually involved in the contest, and will be more or less affected 
even to the end of time, by the proceedings now. Now is the 
seed-time of continental union, faith and honor. The least frac-. 
ture now will be like a name engraved with the point of a pin on 
the tender rind of a young oak ; the wound will enlarge with the 
tree, and posterity read it in full grown characters. 

By referring the matter from argument to arms, a new area for 
politics is struck ; a new method of thinking hath arisen, AU 
plans, proposals, &c. prior to the nineteenth of April, ». e, to the 
commencement of hostilities, are like the almanacks of last 

VQL. i. 5 



34 COMMON SENSE. 

year; which, though proper then, are superceded and useless now. 
Whatever was advanced by the advocates on either side of the 
question then, terminated in one and the same point, viz. a union 
with Great-Britain ; the only difference between the parties was 
the method of effecting it ; the one proposing force, the other 
friendship ; but it hath so far happened that the first has failed, 
and the second has withdrawn her influence. 

As much hath been said of the advantages of reconciliation, 
which, like an agreeable dream, hath passed away and left us as 
we were, it is but right that we should examine the contrary side 
of the argument, and inquire into some of the many material in- 
juries which these colonies sustain, and always will sustain, by be- 
ing connected with and dependant on Great Britain. To exam- 
ine that connection and dependance, on the principles of nature 
and common sense, to see what we have to trust to, if separated, 
and what we are to expect, if dependant. 

I have heard it asserted by some, that as America has flourished 
under her former connexion with Great Britain, the same con- 
nexion is necessaiy towards her future happiness, and will always 
have the same effect. Nothing can be more fallacious than this 
kind of argument. We may as well assert that because a child 
has thrived upon milk, that it is never to have meat, or that the 
first twenty years of our lives is to become a precedent for the 
next twenty. But even this is admitting more than is true, for I 
answer roundly, that America would have flourished as much, and 
probably much more, had no European power had any thing to do 
with her. The articles of commerce, by which she has en- 
riched herself* are the necessaries of life, and will always have 
a market while eating is the custom of Europe. 

But she has protected us, say some. That she hath en- 
grossed us is true, and defended the continent at our expense 
as well as her own, is admitted, and she would have defended 
Turkey from the same motives, viz, for the sake of trade and 
dominion. 

Alas ! we have been long led away by ancient prejudices, 
and made large sacrifices to superstition. We have boasted 
the protection of Great Britain, without considering, that 
her motive was interest not attachment; and that she did not 
protect us from our enemies on our account, but from her ene- 
mies on her own account, from those who had no quarrel with 



COMWOf tBNSE. 



35 



us on any other account, and who will always be our enemies on 
the same account. Let Britain waive her pretensions to the con- 
tinent, or the continent throw off the dependence, and we should 
be at peace with France and Spain, were they at war with Bri- 
tain. The miseries of Hanover last war ought to warn us 
against connexions. 

It hath lately been asserted in parliament, that the colonies 
have no relation to each other but through the parent country, 
i. e. that Pennsylvania and the Jerseys, and so on for the rest, 
are sister colonies by the way of England ; this is certainly a 
very round-about way of proving relationship, but it is the near- 
est and only true way of proving eneinyship, if I may so call it. 
France and Spain never were, nor perhaps ever will be, our ene- 
mies as Americans, but as our being the suhjeefs of Great 
Britain. 

But Britain is the parent country, say some. Then the more 
shame upon her conduct. Fvcn brutes do not devour their 
young, nor savages make war upon their families ; wherefore, 
the assertion, if true, turns to her reproach ; but it happens not 
to be true, or only partly so, and the phrase parent or mother 
coviitry hath been jesuitically adopted by the king and his para- 
sites, with a low papistical design of gaining an unfair bias on 
the credulous weakness of our minds. Europe, and not En- 
gland, is the parent country of America. This new world hath 
been the asylum for the persecuted lovers of civil and religious 
liberty from every pari of Europe. Hither have they fled, not 
from the tender embraces of the mother, but from the cruelty of 
the monster ; and it is so far true of England, that the same ty- 
ranny which drove the first emigrants from home, pursues their 
descendants still. 

In this extensive quarter of the globe, we forget the narrow 
limits of three hundred and sixty miles (the extent of England) 
and carry our friendship on a larger scale ; we claim brotherhood 
with every European Christian, and triumph in the generosity of 
the sentiment. 

It is pleasant to observe by what regular gradations we sur- 
mount local prejudices, as we enlarge our acquaintance with the 
world. A man born in any town in England divided into pa- 
rishes, will naturally associate most with his fellow parishioners 
(because their interests in many cases will be common) and dis 



tinguish hkii by the name of neighbor ; if he meet Mm bnt a fW 
miles from home, he drops the narrow idea of a street, and sa- 
lutes him by the name of townsman \ if he travel out of the 
county, and meets him in any other, he forgets the minor dm-* 
sions of street and town, and calls him countryman} i. *. county- 
man ; but if in their foreign excursions they should associate in 
France or any other part of Europe^ their local remembrance 
would be enlarged into that of Englishmen* And by a just pa* 
rity Of reasoning, all Europeans meeting in America, or any other 
quarter of the globe, are countrymen ; for England, Hollandj 
Germany, or Sweden, when compared with the whole, stand in 
the same places on the larger scale, which the divisions of street* 
town, and county do on the smaller one ; distinctions too limited 
for continental minds. Not one third of the inhabitants, even of 
this province, are of English descent. Wherefore, I reprobate 
the phrase of parent or mother country applied to England only, 
as being false, selfish, narrow and ungenerous. 

But, admitting that we were all of English descent, what does 
it amount to 1 Nothing. Britain, being now an open enemy, ex- 
tinguishes every other name and title : and to say that reconcilia- 
tion is our duty, is truly farcical. The first king of England, of 
the present line (William the Conqueror) was a Frenchman, and 
half the peers of England are descendants from the same coun- 
try ; wherefore, by the same method of reasonings England 
ought to be governed by France* 

Much hath been said of the united strength of Britain and the 
colonies, that in conjunction they might bid defiance to the world. 
But this is mere presumption ; the fate of war is uncertain, neither 
do the expressions mean any thing ; for this continent would ne- 
ver suffer itself to be drained of inhabitants, to support the Bri» 
tish arms in either Asia, Africa, or Europe. 

Besides, what have we to do with setting the world at defiance 1 
Our plan is commerce, and that, well attended to, will secure us 
the peace and friendship of all Europe ; because it is the interest 
of all Europe to have America a free port. Her trade will al- 
ways be a protection, and her barrenness of gold and silver se- 
cure her from invaders. 

I challenge the warmest advocate for reconciliation, to show a 
single advantage that this continent can reap, by being connected 
with Great Britain. I repeat the challenge ; not a single advan- 



COMMON SSNBS. 37 

tAge is derived. Our com will fetch its price in any market in 
Europe, and our imported goods must be paid for, buy them 
Where we will. 

But the injuries and disadvantages which we sustain by that 
connexion, are without number ; and our duty to mankind at 
large, as Well as to ourselves, instructs us to renounce the alli- 
ance ; because, any submission to or depenckmce on Great Bri- 
tain, tends directly to involve this continent in European wars 
and quarrels ; and sets us at variance with nations, who would 
otherwise seek our friendship, and against whom, we have neither 
anger nor complaint. As Europe is our market for trade, wg 
ought to form no partial connexion with any part of it. It is tho 
true interest of America to steer clear of European contentions, 
which she never can do, while, by her dependance on Britain, she 
is msde the make-weight in th<' scale of British politics. 

Europe is too thickly planted with kingdoms to be long at 
peace, and whenever a war breaks out between England and any 
foreign power, the, trade of America goes to ruin, because of her 
connexion with Britain* The next war may not turn out like the 
last, and should it not, the advocates for reconeiliation now will 
be wishing for separation then, because, neutrality in that case, 
would be a safer convoy than a man of war. Every thing that is 
right or natural pleads for separation. The blood of the slain, 
the weeping voice of nature erics, His time, to part. Even the 
distance at which the Almighty hath placed England and \me- 
rica, is a strong and natural proof, that the authority of the one 
over the other, was never the design of heaven. The time like- 
wise at which the continent was discovered, adds weight to the 
argument, and the manner in which it was peopled, increases the 
force of it. The reformation was preceded by the discovery of 
America, as if the Almighty graciously meant to open a sanctu- 
ary to the persecuted in future years, when home should afford 
neither friendship nor safety. 

The authority of Great Britain over this continent, is a form 
of government, which sooner or later must have an end : and a 
serious mind can draw no true pleasure by looking forward, un- 
der the painful and positive conviction, that what he calls " the 
present constitution," is merely temporary. As parents, we can 
have no joy, knowing that this government is not sufficiently 
lasting to ensure any thing which we may bequeath to posteritv • 



38 COMMON SENSE. 

and by a plain method of argument, as we are running the next 
generation into debt, we ought to do the work of it, otherwise 
we use them meanly and pitifully. In order to discover the line 
of our duty rightly, we should take our children in our hand, and 
fix our station a few years farther into life ; that eminence will 
present a prospect, which a few present fears and prejudices con- 
ceal from our sight. 

Though I would carefully avoid giving unnecessary offence, 
yet I am inclined to believe, that all those who espouse the doc- 
trine of reconciliation, may be included within the following des- 
criptions. 

Interested men, who are not to be trusted ; weak men, who 
cannot see ; prejudiced men, who ivill not see ; and a certain 
set of moderate men, who think better of the European world 
than it deserves : and this last class, by an ill-judged delibera- 
tion, will be the cause of more calamities to this continent than 
all the other three. 

It is the good fortune of many to live distant from the scene 
of sorrow ; the evil is not sufficiently brought to their doors to 
make them feel the precariousness with which all American pro- 
perty is possessed. But let our imaginations transport us a few 
moments to Boston ; that seat of wretchedness will teach us 
wisdom, and instruct us forever to renounce a power in whom 
we can have no trust. The inhabitants of that unfortunate city, 
who but a few months ago were in ease and affluence, have now 
no other alternative than to stay and starve, or turn out to beg. 
Endangered by the fire of their friends if they continue within 
the city, and plundered by the soldiery if they leave it. In their 
present situation they are prisoners without the hope of redemp- 
tion, and in a general attack for their relief, they would be ex- 
posed to the fury of both armies. 

Men of passive tempers look somewhat lightly over the of- 
fences of Britain, and, still hoping for the best, are apt to call 
out, " come, come, we shall be friends again for all this." But 
examine the passions and feelings of mankind, bring the doctrine 
of reconciliation to the touchstone of nature, and then tell me, 
whether you can hereafter love, honor, and faithfully serve the 
power that hath carried fire and sword into your land ? If you 
cannot do all these, then are you only deceiving yourselves, and 
by your delay bringing ruin upon your posterity. Your future 



COMMON SENSE. 39 

connexion with Britain, whom you can neither love nor honor, 
will be forced and unnatural, and being formed only on the plan 
of present convenience, will in a little time fall into a relapse 
-nore wretched than the iirst. But if you say, you can still pass 
the violations over, then I ask, hath your house been burnt ? 
Hath your property been destroyed before your face ? Are your 
wife and children destitute of abed to lie on, or bread to live on? 
Have you lost a parent or a child by their hands, and yourself 
til© ruined and wretched survivor? If you have not, then are 
you no: a judge of those who have. But if you have, and can 
still shake hands with the murderer*, then are you unworthy the 
name of husband, father, friend, or lover, and whatever may be 
v.mr rank or title in life, you have the heart of a COWard, and tho 
spirit of a sycophant 

This is not inflaming or exaggerating matters, but trying them 
by thoee feelings and affections which nature justifies, and with- 
out which, we should be incapable of discharging the social du- 
enjoying the felicities of it. I mean not to exhi- 
bit horror for the purpose of provoking revenge, but to awaken 
us from fatal and unmanly slumbers, that we may pursue deter- 
minately some fixed object. It is not in the power of Britain or 
of Europe to conquer America, if she does not conquer herself 
by delay and timidity. The present winter is worth an age if 
rightly employed, but if lost or neglected, the whole continent 
will partake of the misfortune ; and there is no punishment 
which that man will not deserve, be he who, or what, or where 
U'i will, that may be the means of sacrificing a season so pre- 
cious and useful. 

it is repugnant to reason, and the universal order of things, to 
all examples from former ages, to suppose that this continent 
can longer remain subject to any external power. The most 
sanguine in Britain, do not think so. The utmost stretch of 
human wisdom cannot, at this time, compass a plan short of se- 
paration, which can promise the continent even a year's security. 
Reconciliation is now a fallacious dream. Nature hath deserted 
the connexion, and art cannot supply her place. For, as Milton 
wisely expresses, " never can true reconcilement grow, where 
wounds of deadly hate have pierced so deep." 

Every quiet method for peace hath been ineffectual. Our 
prayers have been rejected with disdain ; and only tended to 



40 COMMON SENSE. 

convince 'is that nothing flatters vanity, or confirms obstinacy 
in kings more than repeated petitioning — nothing hath contri- 
buted more than this very measure to make the kings of Europo 
absolute: witness Denmark and Sweden. Wherefore, since 
nothing but blows will do, for God's sake let us come to a final 
separation, and not leave the next generation to be cutting 
throats, under the violated unmeaning names of parent and child. 

To say they will never attempt it again, is idle and visionary ; 
we thought so at the repeal of the stamp act, yet a year or two 
undeceived us : as well may we suppose that nations, which 
have been once defeated, will never renew the quarrel. 

As to government matters, it is not in the power of Britain to 
do this continent justice : the business of it will soon be too 
weighty and intricate to be managed with any tolerable degree of 
convenience, by a power so distant from us, and so very ignorant 
of us ; for if they cannot conquer us, they cannot govern us. 
To be always running three or four thousand miles with a tale or 
a petition, waiting four or five months for an answer, which, 
when obtained, requires five or six more to explain it in, will in 
a few years be looked upon as folly and childishness — there was 
a time when it was proper, and there is a proper time for it to 
cease. 

Small islands, not capable of protecting themselves, are tno 
proper objects for kingdoms to take under their care ; but there 
is something absurd, in supposing a continent to be perpetually 
governed by an island. In no instance hath nature made the 
satellite larger than its primary planet ; and as England and 
America, with respect to each other, reverses the common order 
of nature, it is evident that they belong to different systems j 
England to Europe— America to itself. 

I am not induced by motives of pride, party, or resentment, 
to espouse the doctrine of separation and independence ; I am 
clearly, positively, and conscienciously persuaded that it is the 
true interest of this continent to be so ; that every thing short of 
that is mere patchwork ; that it can afford no lasting felicity, — • 
that it is leaving the sword to our children, and shrinking back 
at a time, when, going a little further, would have rendered this 
continent the glory of the earth. 

As Britain hath not manifested the least inclination towards a 
compromise, we may be assured that no terms can be obtained 



COMMON SENSE. 41 

worthy the acceptance of the continent, or any ways equal to the 
expense of blood and treasure we have been already put to. 

The object contended for, ought always to bear some just pro- 
portion to the expense. The removal of North, or the whole 
detestable junto, is a matter unworthy the millions we have ex- 
pended. A temporary stoppage of trade, was an inconvenience, 
which would have sufficiently balanced the repeal of all the acts 
complained of, had such repeals been obtained ; but if the whole 
continent must take up arms, if every man must be a soldier, it 
is scarcely worth our while to fight against a contemptible 
ministry only. Dearly, dearly do we pay for the repeal of the acts, 
if that is all wo fight for ; for, in a just estimation, it is as groat a 
felly to pay a Hunker-hill price for law as for land. I have 
always considered the independency of this continent, as an 
event which sooner or later must take place, and, from the late 
rapid progress of the continent to maturity, the event cannot be 
far off. Wherefore, on the breaking out of hostilities, it was not 
worth the while to have disputed a matter which time would have 
finally redressed, unless we meant to be in earnest; otherwise, 
it is like wasting an estate OB a suit at law, to regulate the tres- 
passes of a tenant, whose lease is just expiring. No man was 
a warmer wisher for a reconciliation than myself, before the fatal 
nineteenth of April, 1775,* but the moment the event of that 
day was made known, I rejected the hardened, sullen-tempered 
Pharoah of England for ever ; and disdain the wretch, that with 
the pretended title of Father of his people, can unfeelingly hear 
of their slaughter, and composedly sleep with their blood upon 
his soul. 

But admitting that matters were now made up, what would be 
the event ? I answer, the ruin of the continent. And that for 
several reasons. 

1st, The powers of governing still remaining in the hands of 
the king, he wih have a negative over the whole legislation of 
this continent. And as he hath shown himself such an invete- 
rate enemy to liberty, and discovered such a thirst for arbitrary 
power : is he, or is he not, a proper person to say to these colo- 
nies, " you shall make no laws but what I please /" And is there 
any inhabitant of America so ignorant as not to know, that ac- 
cording to what is called the present constitution, this continent 

* Massacre at Lexington. 
VOL. I, 6 



42 COMMON SENSE. 

can make no laws but what the king gives leave to 1 and is there 
any man so unwise as not to see, that (considering what has hap- 
pened) he will suffer no law to be made here, but such as suits 
his purpose 1 We may be as effectually enslaved by the want 
of laws in America, as by submitting to laws made for us in 
England. After matters are made up (as it is called) can there 
be any doubt, but the whole power of the crown will be exerted, 
to keep this continent as low and humble as possible ? Instead 
of going forward we shall go backward, or be perpetually quar- 
relling, or ridiculously petitioning. — We are already greater than 
the king wishes us to be, and will he not hereafter endeavor to 
make us less 1 To bring the matter to one point, Is the power 
who is jealous of our prosperity, a proper power to govern us ? 
Whoever says JVo, to this question, is an independent, for inde- 
pendency means no more than this, whether we shall make our 
own laws, or, whether the king, the greatest enemy which this 
continent hath, or can have, shall tell us " there shall be no laics 
but such as I like." 

But the king, you will say, ha3 a negative in England ; the 
people there can make no laws without his consent. In point of 
right and good order, it is something very ridiculous, that a youth 
of twenty-one (which hath often happened) shall say to several 
millions of people, older and wiser than himself, I forbid this or 
that act of yours to be law. But in this place I decline this sort 
of reply, though I will never cease to expose the absurdity of it ; 
and only answer, that England being the king's residence, and 
America not, makes quite another case. The king's negative 
here is ten times more dangerous and fatal than it can be in Eng- 
land ; for there he will scarcely refuse his consent to a bill for 
putting England into as strong a state of defence as possible, 
and in America he would never suffer such a bill to be passed. 

America is only a secondary object in the system of British 
politics — England consults the good of this country no further 
than it answers her own purpose. Wherefore, her own interest 
leads her to suppress the growth of ours in every case which 
doth not promote her advantage, or in the least interferes with it. 
A pretty state we should soon be in under such a second-hand 
government, considering what has happened ! Men do not 
change from enemies to friends, by the alteration of a name : 
and in order to show that reconciliation now is a dangerous doc- 



COMMON SENSE. 43 

trine, I affirm, that it would be policy in the king at this time, to 
repeal the acts, for the sake of reinstating himself in the govern- 
ment of the provinces ; in order that he may accomplish by craft 
and subtlety, in the long run, what he cannot do by force in the 
short one. Reconciliation and ruin are nearly related. 

2dly, That as even the best terms, which we can expect to 
obtain, can amount to no more than a temporary expedient, or a 
kind of government by guardianship, which can last no longer 
than till the colonies come of age, so the general face and state 
of things, in the interim, will be unsettled and unpromising. 
Emigrants of property will not choose to come to a country 
whose form of government hangs but by a thread, and which is 
. day tottering on the brink of commotion and disturbance ; 
and numbers of the present inhabitants would lay hold of tho 
interval, to dispose of their eflfe< ts, and quit the continent. 

But the most powerful of all arguments, is, that nothing but 
independence, i. e. a continental form of gov e rnment, can keep 
the peace of the continent and preserve it inviolate from civil 

wars. I dread tbe event of a reconciliation with Britain now, as 
it is more than probable that it will be followed by a revolt some- 
where or other, the consequences of which maybe far more 
fatal than all the malice of Britain. 

Thousands are already ruined by British barbarity. (Thou- 
sands more will probably sutler the same fate.) Those men 
have other feelings than us who have nothing suftered. All 
they now possess is liberty, what they before enjoyed is sacri- 
ficed to its service, and having nothing more to lose, they dis- 
dain submission. Besides, the general temper of the colonies, 
towards a British government, will be like that of a youth, who 
is nearly out of his time ; they will care very little about her. 
And a government which cannot preserve the peace, is no go- 
vernment at all, and in that case we pay our money for nothing ; 
and pray what is it that Britain can do, whose power will be 
wholly on paper, should a civil tumult break out the very day 
after reconciliation? I have 'icard some men say, many of 
whom I believe spoke without thinking, that they dreaded an 
independence, fearing that it w i 1 1 produce civil wars. It is 
but seldom that our first thoughts are truly correct, and that is 
the case here; for there is ten ti:..^ more to dread from a patched 
up connexion than from independence. I make the sufferer's 



44 COMMON SENSE. 

case my own, and I protest, that were I driven from house and 
home, my property destroyed, and my circumstances ruined, that 
as a man, sensible of injuries, I could never relish the doctrine 
ot reconciliation, or consider myself bound thereby. 

The colonies have manifested such a spirit of good order and 
obedience to continental government, as is sufficient to make 
every reasonable person easy and happy on that head. No man 
can assign the least pretence for his fears, on any other grounds, 
than such as are truly childish and ridiculous, viz. that one colony 
will be striving for superiority over another. 

Where there are no distinctions there can be no superiority ; 
perfect equality affords no temptation. The republics of Europe 
are all (and we may say always) in peace. Holland and Switzer- 
land are without wars, foreign or domestic : monarchical govern- 
ments, it is true, are never long at rest : the crown itself is a 
temptation to enterprising ruffians at home ; and that degree of 
pride and insolence ever attendant on regal authority, swells into 
a rupture with foreign powers, in instances where a republican 
government, by being formed on more natural principles, would 
negociate the mistake. 

If there is any true cause of fear respecting independence, it 
is because no plan is yet laid down. Men do not see their way- 
out, wherefore, as an opening into that business, I offer the fol- 
lowing hints ; at the same time modestly affirming, that I have 
no other opinion of them myself, than that they may be the 
means of giving rise to something better. Could the straggling 
thoughts of individuals be collected, they would frequently form 
materials for wise and able men to improve into useful matter. 

Let the assemblies be annual, with a president only. The re- 
presentation more equal. Their business wholly domestic, and 
subject to the authority of a continental congress. 

Let each colony be divided into six, eight, or ten, convenient 
districts, each district to send a proper number of delegates to 
congress, so that each colony send at least thirty. The whole 
number in congress will be at least three hundred and ninety. 

Each congress to sit and to choose a president by the 

following method. When the delegates are met, let a colony be 
taken from the whole thirteen colonies by lot, after which, let the 
congress choose (by ballot) a president from out of the delegates 
of that province. In the next congress, let a colony be taken 



COMMON SENSE 45 

by lot from twelve only, omitting that colony from which the 
president was taken in the former congress, and so proceeding 
on till the whole thirteen shall have had their proper rotation. 
And in order that nothing may pass into a law but what is satis- 
factorily just, not less than three-fifths of the congress to be 
called a majority. He that will promote discord, under a govern- 
ment so equally formed as this, would have joined Lucifer in 
his revolt. 

But as there is a peculiar delicacy, from whom, or in what 
manner, this business must first arise, and as it seems most 
agreeable and consistent, that it should come from some inter- 
mediate body between the governed and the governors, that is, 
between the congress and the people, let a Continental Gonfe- 
rence be held, in the following manner, and for the following 
purpose, 

A committee of twenty-six members of congress, viz. two for 
each colony. Two members from each bouse of assembly, or 
provincial convention ; and five representatives of the people at 
large, to be chosen in the capital city or town of each province, 
for, and in behalf of the whole province, by as many qualified 
voters as shall think proper to attend from all parts of the pro- 
vince for that purpose; or, if more convenient, the representa- 
tives maybe chosen in two or three of the most populous parts 
thereof. In this conference, thus assembled, will he united, the 
two grand principles of business, knowledge and power. The 
members of congress, assemblies, or com by having had 

experience in national concerns, will he able and useful counsel- 
lors, and the whole, being empowered by the people, will have a 
truly legal authority. 

The conferring members being met, let their business be to 
frame a Continental Charter, or Charter of the United Colonies ; 
(answering to what is called the Magna Charta of England) fix- 
ing the number and manner of choosing members of congress, 
and members of assembly, with their date of sitting, and draw- 
ing the line of business and jurisdiction between them : (always 
remembering, that our strength is continental, not provincial) se- 
curing freedom and property to all men, and above all things, the 
free exercise of religion, according to the dictates of conscience; 
with such other matter as it is necessary for a charter to contain. 
Immediately after which, the said conference to dissolve, and tho 



46 COMMON SENSE. 

bodies which shall be chosen conformable to the said charter, to 
be the legislators and governors of this continent for the time 
being : whose peace and happiness, may God preserve, Amen. 

Should any body of men be hereafter delegated for this or 
some similar purpose, I offer them the following extracts from 
that wise observer on governments, Dragonetti. " The science," 
says he, " of the politician consists in fixing the true point of 
happiness and freedom. Those men would deserve the gratitude 
of ages, who should discover a mode of government that con- 
tained the greatest sum of individual happiness, with the least 
national expense." 

But where, say some, is the king of America ? I'll tell you, 
triend, he reigns above, and doth not make havoc of mankind 
like the royal brute of Britain. Yet that we may not appear to 
be defective even in earthly honors, let a day be solemnly set 
apart for proclaiming the charter ; let it be brought forth placed 
on the divine law, the word of God ; let a crown be placed there- 
on, by which the world may know, that so far as we approve of 
monarchy, that in America the law is king. For as in absolute 
governments the king is law, so in free countries the law ought 
to be king ; and there ought to be no other. But lest any ill use 
should afterwards arise, let the crown at the conclusion of the 
ceremony be demolished, and scattered among the people whose 
right it is. 

A government of our own is our natural right : and when a 
man seriously reflects on the precariousness of human affaiis, 
he will become convinced, that it is infinitely wiser and safer, to 
form a constitution of our own in a cool deliberate manner, while 
we have it in our power, than to trust such an interesting event 
to time and chance. If we omit it now, some Massanello* may 
hereafter arise, who, laying hold of popular disquietudes, may 
collect together the desperate and the discontented, and by as- 
suming to themselves the powers of government, finally sweep 
away the liberties of the continent like a deluge. Should the 
government of America return again into the hands of Britain, 
the tottering situation of things will be a temptation for some 
desperate adventurer to try his fortune ; and in such a case, what 

* Thomas Anello, otherwise Massanello, a fisherman of Naples, who after 
spiriting up his countrymen in the public market place, against the oppres- 
sion of the Spaniards, to whom the place was then subject, prompted them 
to revolt, and in the space of a day became king. 



COMMON 8ENSE. 47 

relief can Britain give ? Ere she could hear the news, the fatal 
business might be done ; and ourselves suffering like the wretch- 
ed Britons under the oppression of the Conqueror. Ye that op- 
pose independence now, ye know not what ye do ; ye are open- 
ing a door to eternal tyranny, by keeping vacant the seat of go- 
vernment. There are thousands and tens of thousands, who 
would think it glorious to expel from the continent, that barba- 
rous and hellish power, which hath stirred up the Indians and ne- 
groes to destroy us — the cruelty hath a double guilt, it is dealing 
brutally by us, and treacherously by them. 

To talk of friendship with those in whom our reason forbids 
us to have faith, and our affections, wounded through a thousand 
pores, instruct us to detest, is madness and folly. Every day 
wears out the little remains of kindred between us and them ; 
and can there be any reason to hope, that as the relationship ex- 
pires, the affection will increase, or that we shall agree better 
when we have ten times more and greater concerns to quarrel 
over than ever ? 

Ye that tell us of harmony and reconciliation, can ye restore 
to us the time that is past? Can ye give to prostitution its for- 
mer innocence ? Neither can ye reconcile Britain and America. 
The last cord now is broken, the people of England are present- 
ing addresses against us. There are injuries which nature can- 
not forgive ; she would cease to be nature if she did. As well 
ean the lover forgive the ravisher of his mistress, as the conti- 
nent forgive the murders of Britain. The Almighty hath im- 
planted in us these unextinguishable feelings, for good and wise 
purposes. They are the guardians of hi3 image in our hearts, 
and distinguish us from the herd of common animals. The so- 
cial compact would dissolve, and justice be extirpated from the 
earth, or have only a casual existence were we callous to the 
touches of affection. The robber, and the murderer, would 
often escape unpunished, did not the injuries which our tempers 
sustain, provoke us into justice. 

O ! ye that love mankind ! Ye that dare oppose, not only the 
tyranny, but the tyrant, stand forth ! Every spot of the old world 
is overrun with oppression. Freedom hath been haunted round the 
globe. Asia, and Africa, have long expelled her. Europe regards 
her like a stranger, and England hath given her warning to depart. 
O ! receive the fugitive, and prepare in time an asylum for mankind. 



45 COMMON SENSE. 



OF THE PRESENT ABILITY OF AMERICA: WITH SOME MISCEL- 
LANEOUS REFLECTIONS. 

I have never met with a man, either in England or America. 
who hath not confessed his opinion, that a separation between the 
countries would take place one time or other : and there is no 
instance, in which we have shown less judgment, than in en- 
deavoring to describe, what we call, the ripeness or fitness of the 
continent for independence. 

As all men allow the measure, and vary only in their opinion 
of the time, let us, in order to remove mistakes, take a general 
survey of things, and endeavor, if possible, to find out the very 
time. But we need not go far, the inquiry ceases at once, for, 
the time hath found us. The general concurrence, the glorious 
union of all things proves the fact. 

It is not in numbers, but in unity, that our great strength lies ; 
yet our present numbers are sufficient to repel the force of all 
the world. The continent hath, at this time, the largest body of 
armed and disciplined men of any power under heaven ; and is 
just arrived at that pitch of strength, in which, no single colony 
is able to support itself, and the whole, when united, can accom- 
plish the matter, and either more, or less than this, might be fatal 
in its effects. Our land force is already sufficient, and as to naval 
affairs, we cannot be insensible that Britain would never suffer 
an American man of war to be built, while the continent remained 
in her hands. Wherefore, we should be no forwarder an hundred 
years hence in that branch, than we are now ; but the truth is, 
we should be less so, because the timber of the country is every 
day diminishing, and that which will remain at last, will be far 
off or difficult to procure. 

Were the continent crowded with inhabitants, her sufferings 
under the present circumstances would be intolerable. The 
more seaport-towns we had, the more should we have both to 
defend and to lose. Our present numbers are so happily pro- 
portioned to our wants, that no man need be idle. The diminu- 
tion of trade affords an army, and the necessities of an army 
create a new trade. Debts we have none : and whatever we 
may contract on this account will serve as a glorious memento 



COMMON SENSE* 49 

of our virtue. Can we but leave posterity with a settled form of 
government, an independent constitution of its own, the purchase 
at any price will be cheap. But to expend millions for the sake 
of getting a few vile acts repealed, and routing the present mi- 
nistry only, is unworthy the charge, and is using posterity with 
the utmost cruelty ; because it is leaving them the great work to 
do, and a debt upon their backs, from which they derive no 
advantage. Such a thought is unworthy a man of honor, and 
is the true characteristic of a narrow heart and a peddling poli- 
tician. 

The debt we may contract doth not deserve our regard, if the 
work be but accomplished. No nation ought to be without a 
debt. A national debt is a national bond ; and when it bears no 
interest, is in no case a grievance. Britain is oppressed with a 
debt of upwards of one hundred and forty millions sterling, for 
which she pays upwards of four millions interest. And as a 
compensation for her debt, she has a large navy ; America is 
without a debt, and without a navy ; yet for the twentieth part of 
the English national debt, could have a navy as large again. The 
navy of England is not worth, at this time, more than three mil- 
lions and a half sterling. 

The following calculations are given as a proof that the above 

estimation of the navy is a just one. [See Entick's Naval His- 
tory, Intro, p. 56.] 



The charge of building a ship of each rate, and furnishing her with masts, 
yards, sails, and rigging, together with a proportion of eight months boat* 
swain's and carpenter's sea-stores, as calculated by Mr. Burchett, secretary 
to the navy. 



For a ship of 100 guns, 


• 


- 


35,553/, 


90 


- 


- 


- 


29,886 


80 


- 


- 


- 


23,638 


70 


- 


. 


m 


17,785 


60 


. 


. 


. 


14,197 


50 


. 


. 


. 


10,606 


40 


. 


„ 


. 


7,558 


30 


. 


» 


, 


5,846 


20 


- 


* 


r 


3,710 



And hence it is easy to sum up the value, or cost, rather, of 
the whole British navy, which, in the year 1757, when it was at 
its greatest glory, consisted of the following ships and guns, 

vol x, w 



50 





COMMON SENSE. 




'hips. 


Guns. 




Cost of one. 


Cost of all. 


6 


100 


. 


55,553/. - 


213,318*. 


12 


90 


. 


39,886 


358,632 


12 


80 


- 


23,638 


283,656 


43 


70 


- 


17,785 


764,755 


35 


60 


- 


14,197 


496,895 


40 


50 


. 


10,605 


424,240 


45 


40 


. 


7,558 


340,110 


58 


20 


. 


3,710 


215,180 


85 Sloops, 


bombs 


, and 


) 




fireships, one 


with 


V 2,000 


170,000 


another 


', at 




Cost, 


3,266,786/. 






Remains for guns, 


233,214 








Total, 


3,500,000/. 



JNo country on the globe is so happily situated, or so internally 
capable of raising a fleet as America. Tar, timber, iron, and 
cordage are her natural produce. We need go abroad for no- 
thing. Whereas the Dutch, who make large profits by hiring 
out their ships of war to the Spaniards and Portugese, are ob- 
liged to import most of the materials they use. We ought to 
view the building a fleet as an article of commerce, it being the 
natural manufacture of this country. It is the best money we 
can lay out. A navy when finished is worth more than it cost : 
and is that nice point in national policy, in which commerce and 
protection are united. Let us build ; if we want them not, we 
can sell ; and by that means replace our paper currency with 
ready gold and silver. 

In point of manning a fleet, people in general run into great 
errors ; it is not necessary that one-fourth part should be sailors. 
The privateer Terrible, captain Death, stood the hottest engage- 
ment of any ship last war, yet had not twenty sailors on board, 
though her complement of men was upwards of two hundred. 
A few able and social sailors will soon instruct a sufficient num- 
ber of active landsmen in the common work of a ship. Where- 
fore, we never can be more capable of beginning on maritime 
matters than now, while our timber is standing, our fisheries 
blocked up, and our sailors and shipwrights out of employ. Men 
of war, of seventy and eighty guns, were built forty years ago 
in New England, and why not the same now ? Ship building is 
America's greatest pride, and in which she will, in time, excel 
the whole world. The great empires of the east are mostly in- 
land, and consequently excluded from the possibility of rivalling 
her. Africa is in a state of barbarism ; and no power in Europe, 



COMMON SENSE. 5\ 

hath either such an extent of coast, or such an internal supply of 
materials. Where nature hath given the one, she hath withheld 
the other ; to America only hath she been liberal of both. The 
vast empire of Russia is almost shut out from the sea ; wherefore, 
her boundless forests, her tar, iron, and cordage are only articles 
of commerce. 

In point of safety, ought we to be without a fleet 1 We are not 
the little people now, which we were sixty years ago ; at that time 
we might have trusted our property in the streets, or fields rather ; 
and slept securely without locks or bolts to our doors or windows. 
The case is now altered, and our methods of defence ought to im- 
prove with our increase of property. A common pirate, twelve 
months ago, might have come up the Delaware, and laid this city 
under contribution for what sum he pleased ; and the same might 
have happened to other places. Nay, any daring fellow, in a brig 
of fourteen or sixteen guns, might have robbed the whole continent, 
and carried off half a million of money. These are circumstances 
which demand our attention, and point out the necessity of naval 
protection. 

Some perhaps, will say, that after we have made it up with Bri- 
tain, she will protect us. Can they be so unwise as to mean, that 
she will keep a navy in our harbors for that purpose 1 Common 
sense will tell us, that the power which hath endeavored to subdue 
us, is of all others, the most improper to defend us. Conquest 
may be effected under the pretence of friendship ; and ourselves, 
after a long and brave resistance, be at last cheated into slavery. 
And if her ships are not to be admitted into our harbors, I would 
ask, how is she to protect us 1 A navy three or four thousand 
miles off can be of little use, and on sudden emergencies, none at 
all. Wherefore, if we must hereafter protect ourselves, why not 
do it for ourselves 1 Why do it for another 1 

The English list of ships of war, is long and formidable, but not 
a tenth part of them are at any one time fit for service, numbers of 
them are not in being ; yet their names are pompously continued 
in the list, if only a plank be left of the ship ; and not a fifth part of 
such as are fit for service, can be spared on any one station at one 
time. The East and West Indies, Mediterranean, Africa, and 
other parts of the world, over which Britain extends her claim, 
make large demands upon her navy. From a mixture of preju- 
dice and inattention, we have contracted a false notion respecting 



62 COMMON SENSE. 

the navy of England, and have talked as if we should have the 
whole of it to encounter at once, and, for that reason, supposed 
that we must have one as large ; Which not being instantly practi- 
cable, has been made use of by a set of disguised tories to discou- 
rage our beginning thereon. Nothing can be further from truth 
than this ; for if America had only a twentieth part of the naval 
force of Britain, she would be by far an over match for her ; be- 
cause, as we neither have, nor claim any foreign dominion, our 
Whole force would be employed on our own coast, where we should, 
in the long run, have two to one the advantage of those who had 
three or four thousand miles to sail over, before they could attack 
us, and the same distance to return in order to refit and recruit. 
And although Britain, by her fleet, hath a check over our trade to 
Europe, we have as large a one over her trade to the West Indies, 
which, by laying in the neighborhood of the continent, is entirely 
at its mercy. 

Some method might be fallen on to keep up a naval force in time 
of peace, if we should not judge it necessary to support a constant 
navy. If premiums were to be given to merchants, to build and 
employ in their service* ships mounted with twenty, thirty, forty, 
or fifty guns, (the premiums to be in proportion to the loss of bulk 
to the merchants,) fifty or sixty of those ships with a few guard- 
ships on constant duty, would keep up a sufficient navy, and that 
without burdening ourselves with the evil so loudly complained of 
in England, of suffering their fleet in time of peace, to lie rotting 
in the docks. To unite the sinews of commerce and defence is 
sound policy ; for when our strength and our riches play into each 
other's hand, we need fear no external enemy. 

In almost every article of defence we abound. Hemp flourish- 
es even to rankness, so that we need not want cordage. Our iron 
is superior to that of other countries. Our small arms equal to 
any in the world. Cannon we can cast at pleasure. Saltpetre 
and gunpowder we are every day producing. Our knowledge is 
hourly improving. Resolution is our inherent character, and 
courage hath never yet forsaken us. Wherefore, what is it that we 
want ? Why is it that we hesitate ? From Britain we can expect 
nothing but ruin. If she is once admitted to the government of 
America again, this continent will not be worth living in. Jealou- 
sies will be always arising, insurrections will be constantly happen- 
ing ; and who will go forth to quell them 1 Who will venture his 



COMMON SENSE. 53 

life to reduce his own countrymen to a foreign obedience I The 
difference between Pennsylvania and Connecticut, respecting some 
unlocated lands, shows the insignificance of a British government, 
and fully proves that nothing but continental authority can regulate 
continental matters. 

Another reason why the present time is preferable to all others, 
is, that the fewer our numbers are, the more land there is yet un- 
occupied, which, instead of being lavished by the king on his worth- 
less dependants, may be hereafter applied, not only to the dis- 
charge of the present debt, but to the constant support of govern- 
ment. No nation under heaven hath such an advantage as this. 

The infant state of the colonies, as it is called, so far from being 
against, is an argument in favor of independence. We are suffi- 
ciently numerous, and were we more so we might be less united. 
It is a matter worthy of observation, that the more a country is 
peopled, the smaller their armies are. In military numbers, the 
ancients far exceeded the moderns : and the reason is evident, for 
trade being the consequence of population, men became too much 
absorbed thereby to attend to any thing else. Commerce dimin- 
ishes the spirit both of patriotism and military defence. And his- 
tory sufficiently informs us, that the bravest achievements were al- 
ways accomplished in the non-age of a nation. With the increase 
of commerce England hath lost its spirit. The city of London, 
notwithstanding its numbers, submits to continued insults with the 
patience of a coward. The more men have to lose, the less 
willing are they to venture. The rich are in general slaves to 
fear, and submit to courtly power with the trembling duplicity of 
a spaniel. 

Youth is the seed-time of good habits, as well in nations as in 
individuals. It might be difficult, if not impossible, to form the 
continent into one government half a century hence. The vast 
variety of interests, occasioned by an increase of trade and popu- 
lation, would create confusion. Colony would be against colony. 
Each being able, might scorn each other's assistance : and while 
the proud and foolish gloried in their little distinctions, the wise 
would lament that the union had not been formed before. Where- 
fore the present time is the true time for establishing it. The inti- 
macy which is contracted in infancy, and the friendship which is 
formed in misfortune, are, of all others, the most lasting and unal- 
terable. Our present union is marked with both these characters 



54 COMMON SENSE. 

we are young, and we have been distressed ; but our concord nath 
withstood our troubles, and fixes a memorable era for posterity to 
glory in. 

The present time, likewise, is that peculiar time which never 
happens to a nation but once, viz. the time of forming itself into 
a government. Most nations have let slip the opportunity, and 
by that means have been compelled to receive laws from their 
conquerors, instead of making laws for themselves. First, they 
had a king, and then a form of government ; whereas the articles 
or charter of government, should be formed first, and men de- 
legated to execute them afterwards : but from the errors of other 
nations, let us learn wisdom, and lay hold of the present opportu- 
nity — to begin government at the right end. 

When William the Conqueror subdued England, he gave them 
law at the point of the sword ; and, until we consent that the seat 
of government in America be legally and authoritatively occupied, 
we shall be in danger of having it filled by some fortunate ruffian, 
who may treat us in the same manner, and then, where will be our 
freedom 1 where our property 1 

As to religion, I hold it to be the indespensable duty of all gov- 
ernments, to protect all conscientious professors thereof, and I 
know of no other business which government hath to do therewith. 
Let a man throw aside that narrowness of soul, that selfishness of 
principle, which the niggards of all professions are so unwilling to 
part with, and he will be at once delivered of his fears on that head. 
Suspicion is the companion of mean souls, and the bane of all good 
society. For myself, I fully and conscientiously believe, that it is 
the will of the Almighty, that there should be a diversity of religious 
opinions among us : it affords a larger field for our Christian kind- 
ness. Were we all of one way of thinking, our religious disposi- 
tions would want matter for probation ; and on this liberal princi- 
ple, I look on the various denominations among us, to be like 
children of the same family, differing only in what is called their 
Christian names. 

In a former page, I threw out a few thoughts on the propriety of 
a Continental Charter (for I only presume to offer hints, not plans) 
and in this place, I take the liberty of re-mentioning the subject, 
Dy observing, that a charter is to be understood as a bond of solemn 
obligation, which the whole enters into, to support the right 



COMMON SENSE. 55 

of every separate part, whether of religion, personal freedom, 
or property. A firm bargain and a right reckoning make long 
friends. 

I have heretofore likewise mentioned the necessity of a large 
and equal representation ; and there is no political matter which 
more deserves our attention. A small number of electors, or a 
small number of representatives, are equally dangerous. But if the 
number of the representatives be not only small, but unequal, the 
danger is increased. As an instance of this, I mention the follow- 
ing ; when the associators' petition was before the house of as- 
sembly of Pennsylvania, twenty-eight members only were present; 
all the Bucks county members, being eight, voted against it, and 
had seven of the Chester members done the same, this whole 
province had been governed by two counties only ; and this dan- 
ger it is always exposed to. The unwarrantable stretch likewise, 
which that house made in their last sitting, to gain an undue au- 
thority over the delegates of this province, ought to warn the 
people at large, how they trust power out of their own hands. A 
set of instructions for their delegates were put together, which in 
point of sense and business would have dishonoured a school-boy, 
and after being approved by afeiv, a very few, without doors, were 
carried into the house, and there passed in behalf of the whole 
colony ; whereas, did the whole colony know with what ill will that 
house had entered on some necessary public measures, they would 
not hesitate a moment to think them unworthy of such a trust. 

Immediate necessity makes many things convenient, which if 
continued would grow into oppressions. Expedience and right are 
different things. When the calamities of America required a con- 
sultation, there was no method so ready, or at that time so proper, 
as to appoint persons from the several houses of assembly for that 
purpose ; and the wisdom with which they have proceeded hath 
preserved this continent from ruin. But as it is more than proba- 
ble that we shall never be without a Congress, every well-wisher 
to good order must own, that the mode for choosing members of 
that body, deserves consideration. And I put it as a question to 
those, who make a study of mankind, whether representation and 
election is not too great a power for one and the same body of men 
to possess 1 Whenever we are planning for posterity, we ought to 
remember that virtue is not hereditary. 

It is from our enemies that we often gain excellent maxims, 



66 COMMON SENSE. 

and are frequently surprised into reason by their mistakes. Mr. 
Cornwall (one of the lords of the treasury) treated the petition of 
the New- York assembly with contempt, because that house, he 
said, consisted but of twenty-six members, which trifling number, 
he argued, could not with decency be put for the whole. We 
thank him for his involuntary honesty.* 

To conclude. However strange it may appear to some, or how- 
ever unwilling they may be to think so, matters not, but many 
strong and striking reasons may be given, to show, that nothing 
can settle our affairs so expeditiously as an open and determined 
declaration for independence. Some of which are, 

1st, It is the custom of nations, when any two are at war, for 
some other powers, not engaged in the quarrel, to step in as me- 
diators, and bring about the preliminaries of a peace ; but while 
America calls herself the subject of Britain, no power, however 
well disposed she may be, can offer her mediation. Wherefore, 
in our present state, we may quarrel on for ever. 

2d, It is unreasonable to suppose, that France or Spain will give 
us any kind of assistance, if we mean only to make use of that as- 
sistance for the purpose of repairing the breach, and strengthening 
the connexion between Britain and America ; because, those 
powers would be sufferers by the consequences. 

3d, While we profess ourselves the subjects of Britain, we must, 
in the eyes of foreign nations, be considered as rebels. The pre- 
cedent is somewhat dangerous to their peace, for men to be in 
arms under the name of subjects ; we, on the spot, can solve the 
paradox : but to unite resistance and subjection, requires an idea 
much too refined for common understanding. 

4th, Should a manifesto be published, and despatched to foreign 
courts, setting forth the miseries we have endured, and the peaceful 
methods which we have ineffectually used for redress ; declaring 
at the same time, that not being able, any longer, to live happily 01 
safely under the cruel disposition of the British court, we had been 
driven to the necessity of breaking off all connexion with her; at 
the same time, assuring all such courts of our peaceable disposition 
towards them, and of our desire of entering into trade with them. 
Such a memorial would produce more good effects to this conti- 
nent, than if a ship were freighted with petitions to Britain. 

* Those who would fully understand of what great consequence a large and 
equal representation is to a state, should read Burgh's Political Disquisitions, 



COMMON SENSE. 57 

Under our present denomination of British subjects, we can 
neither be received nor heard abroad : the custom of all courts is 
against us, and will be so, until, by an independence, we take rank 
with other nations. 

These proceedings may at first appear strange and difficult; but 
like all other steps, which we have already passed over, will in a 
little time become familiar and agreeable ; and, until an indepen- 
dence is declared, the continent will feel itself like a man who 
continues putting off some unpleasant business from day to day, 
yet knows it must be done, hates to set about it, wishes it over, 
and is continually haunted with the thoughts of its necessity. 



»o|o« 



APPENDIX. 



Since the publication of the first edition of this pamphlet, or 
rather, on the same day on which it came out, the king's speech 
made its appearance in this city. Had the spirit of prophecy di- 
rected the birth of this production, it could not have brought it 
forth at a more seasonable juncture, or at a more necessary time. 
The bloody-mindedness of the one, shows the necessity of pursuing 
the doctrine of the other. Men read by way of revenge : — and 
ihe speech, instead of terrifying, prepared a way for the manly 
principles of independence. 

Ceremony, and even silence, from whatever motives they may 
arise, have a hurtful tendency, when they give the least degree of 
countenance to base and wicked performances ; wherefore, if this 
maxim be admitted, it naturally follows, that the king's speech, as 
being a piece of finished villany, deserved and still deserves, a 
general execration, both by the congress and the people. Yet, as 
the domestic tranquillity of a nation, ^depends greatly on the chas- 
tity of what may properly be called national manners, it is often 
better to pass some things over in silent disdain, than to make use 
of such new methods of dislike, as might introduce the least inno- 
vation on that guardian of our peace and safety. And, perhaps, it 

vol. i. 8 






53 **mK** COMMON SENS8. tmm& 

is chiefly owing to this prudent delicacy, that the king's speech 
hath not before now suffered a public execution. The speech, if 
it may be called one, is nothing better than a wilful audacious libel 
against the truth, the common good, and the existence of mankind; 
and is a formal and pompous method of offering up human sacri- 
fices to the pride of tyrants. But this general massacre of man- 
kind, is one of the privileges and the certain consequences of 
kings ; for as nature knows them not, they know not her, and al- 
though they are beings of our own creating, they know not us, and 
are become the gods of their creators. The speech hath one good 
quality, which is, that it is not calculated to deceive, neither can 
we, if we would, be deceived by it. Brutality and tyranny appear 
on the face of it. It leaves us at no loss ; and every line convinces, 
even in the moment of reading, that ae who hunts the woods for 
prey, the naked and untutorec ~u ian, is less savage than the king 
of Britain. 

Sir John Dalrymple, the putative father of a whining jesuiti 
cal piece, fallaciously called, " The address of the people of 
England to the inhabitants of America," hath perhaps, from a vain 
supposition that the people here were to be frightened at the pomp 
and description of a king, given, (though very unwisely on his 
part) the real character of the present one : " But," says this 
writer, " if you are inclined to pay compliments to an administra- 
tion, which we do not complain of" (meaning the Marquis of 
Rockingham's at the repeal of the Stamp Act) " it is very unfair 
in you to withhold them from that prince, by whose nod alone 
they were 'permitted to do any thing." This is toryism with a wit- 
ness ! Here is idolatry even without a mask : and he who can 
calmly hear and digest such doctrine, hath forfeited his claim 
to rationality ; is an apostate from the order of manhood, and 
ought to be considered — as one, who hath not only given up the 
proper dignity of man, but sunk himself beneath the rank of ani- 
mals, and contemptibly crawls through the world like a worm. 

However, it matters very little now, what the king of England 
either says or does ; he hath wickedly broken through every moral 
and human obligation, trampled nature and conscience beneath 
his feet ; and by a steady and constitutional spirit of insolence and 
cruelty, procured for himself an universal hatred. It is now the 
interest of America to provide for herself. She hath already a 
large and young family, whom it is more her duty to take care of, 



COMMON SENS*. $$ 

than to be granting away her property to support a power \vbief* i* 
become a reproach to the names of met* and Christian--— Fe, 
whose office it is to watch over the morals of a nation* of wkt- 
soever sect or denomination ye are of, as wcM as ye who are m§7* 
immediately the guardians o£ the public liberty* if yon wish to pt& 
serve your native country uncontaminated by European corruption, 
ye must in secret wish a separation=but leaving the moral part to 
private reflection, I shall ehiefty eonflnt my further remark* to tfo» 
following heads : 

1st, That it is the interest of America to be separated from 
Britain. 

2d, Which is the easiest and most practicable plan, remmUm^ 
tion or independence t with some occasional remarks* 

In support of the first, I could, if I judged it pioper, produce the 
opinion of some of the ablest and most experienced men on this 
Continent : and whose sentiments on that head, are not yet pub- 
licly known* It is in reality a self-evident position i for no nation 
in a state of foreign dependance, limited in its commerce, and 
cramped and fettered in its legislative powers, can ever arrive at 
arty material eminence. America doth not yet know what OpU» 
lence is ; and although the progress which she hath made stand?* 
unparalleled in the history of other nations, it is but childhood* 
compared with what she would be capable of arriving at, had shej 
as she ought to have, the legislative powers in her own hands* 
England is, at this time., proudly coveting what would do her no 
good were she to accomplish it ; and the continent hesitating on 
a matter which will be her final ruin if neglected. It is the com 
merce and not the conquest of America by which England is to bo 
benefited* and that would in a gi eat measure continue, were the 
countries as independent of each ,ther as France and Spain ; be- 
cause in many articles neither can go to a better market. But it 
is the independence of this country of Britain^ or any ether, which 
is now the main and only object worthy cf contention, and which, 
like all Other truths discovered by necessity, will appear clearer 
and stronger every day. 

1st, Because it will come to that one time or other. 

2d, Because the longer it is delayed, the harder it will be to a© 
complish. 

I have frequently amused myself Jboth in public and private 
companies, with eilently remarking the specious errors of thos# 






60 COMMON SENSE. 

who speak without reflecting. And among the many which I have 
heard, the following seems the most general, viz. that if this rup- 
ture should happen forty or fifty years hence, instead of now, the 
continent would be more able to shake off the dependance. To 
which I reply, that our military ability, at this time, arises from the 
experience gained in the last war, and which in forty or fifty years 
time, would be totally extinct. The continent would not, by that 
time, have a general, or even a military officer left ; and we, or 
those who may succeed us, would be as ignorant of martial mat- 
ters as the ancient Indians : and this single position, closely at- 
tended to, will unanswerably prove that the present time is prefer- 
able to all others. The argument turns thus — at the conclusion 
of the last war, we had experience, but wanted numbers ; and 
forty or fifty years hence, we shall have numbers, without experi- 
ence ; wherefore, the proper point of time, must be some particulai 
point between the two extremes, in which a sufficiency of the 
former remains, and a proper increase of the latter is obtained : 
and that point of time is the present time. 

The reader will pardon this digression, as it does not properly 
come under the head I first set out with, and to which I again re- 
turn by the following position, viz. 

Should affairs be patched up with Britain, and she remain the 
governing and sovereign power of America, (which, as matters 
are now circumstanced, is giving up the point entirely) we shall 
deprive ourselves of the very means of sinking the debt we have, 
or may contract. The value of the back lands, which some of the 
provinces are clandestinely deprived of, by the unjust extension of 
the limits of Canada, valued only at five pounds sterling per hun- 
dred acres, amount to upwards of twenty-five millions Pennsylva- 
nia currency ; and the quit-rents at one penny sterling per acre, 
to two millions yearly. 

It is by the sale of those lands that the debt may be sunk, with- 
out burden to any, and the quit-rent reserved thereon, will always 
lessen, and in time, will wholly support the yearly expense of gov- 
ernment. It matters not how long the debt is in paying, so that 
the lands when sold be applied to the discharge of it, and for the 
execution of which, the congress for the time being, will be the 
continental trustees. 

I proceed now to the second head, viz. Which is the easiest 






COMMON SENSE. 61 

and most practicable plan, reconciliation or independence ? with 
some occasional remarks. 

He who takes nature for his guide, is not easily beaten out of 
his argument, and on that ground, I answer generally — That in- 
dependence being a single simple line, contained within our- 
selves ; and reconciliation, a matter exceedingly perplexed and 
complicated, and in which a treacherous, capricious court is to 
interfere, gives the answer without a doubt. 

The present state of America is truly alarming to every man 
who is capable of reflection. Without law, without government, 
without any other mode of power than what is founded on, and 
granted by, courtesy. Held together by an unexampled occur- 
rence of sentiment, which is nevertheless subject to change, and 
which every secret enemy is endeavoring to dissolve. Our pre- 
sent condition is, legislation without law ; wisdom without a plan ; 
a constitution without a name ; and, what is strangely astonishing, 
perfect independence contending for dependence. The instance 
is without a precedent ; the case never existed before ; and, who 
can tell what may be the event] The property of no man is 
secure in the present unbraced system of things. The mind of 
the multitude is left at random, and seeing no fixed object before 
them, they pursue such as fancy or opinion presents. Nothing is 
criminal ; there is no such thing as treason ; wherefore, every one 
thinks himself at liberty to act as he pleases. The tories dared 
not have assembled offensively, had they known that their lives, 
by that act, were forfeited to the laws of the state. A line of dis- 
tinction should be drawn between English soldiers taken in battle, 
and inhabitants of America taken in arms. The first are pris- 
oners, but the latter traitors. The one forfeits his liberty, the 
other his head. 

Notwithstanding our wisdom, there is a visible feebleness in 
some of our proceedings which gives encouragement to dissen- 
tions. The Continental Belt is too loosely buckled. And if 
something is not done in time, it will be too late to do any thing, 
and we shall fall into a state, in which neither Reconciliation nor 
Independence will be practicable. The king and his worthless 
adherents are got at their old game of dividing the continent, and 
there are not wanting among us, printers, who will be busy in 
spreading specious falsehoods. The artful and hypocritical letter 
which appeared a few months ago in two of the New-York 



62 COMMON SENSE. 

papers, and likewise in others, is an evidence that tnere are men 
who want both judgment and honesty. 

It is easy getting into holes and corners and talking of recon- 
ciliation : but do such men seriously consider how difficult the 
task is, and how dangerous it may prove, should the continent 
divide thereon. Do they take within their view, all the various 
orders of men whose situation and circumstances, as well as their 
own, are to be considered therein. Do they put themselves in 
the place of the sufferer whose all is already gone, and of the 
soldier, who hath quitted all for the defence of his country 1 If 
their ill-judged moderation be suited to their own private situations 
only, regardless of others, the event will convince them that 
" they are reckoning without their host." 

Put us, say some, on the footing we were in the year 1763 : td 
which I answer, the request is not now in the power of Britain 16 
comply with, neither will she propose it ; but if it were, and 6veil 
should it be granted, I ask, as a reasonable question; b^ tyhat 
means is such a corrupt and faithless court to be kept to its en- 
gagements 1 Another parliament, nay, even the present, may 
hereafter repeal the obligation, on the pretence of its being vio- 
lently obtained, or unwisely granted ; and, in that case, where is 
our redress ? No going to law with nations ; cannon are the 
barristers of crowns ; and the sword, not of justice, but of war, 
decides the suit. To be on the footing of 1763, it is not suffi- 
cient, that the laws only be put in the same state, but, that our 
circumstances, likewise, be put in the same state ; our burnt ftncl 
destroyed towns repaired, or built up, our private losses ffiade 
good, our public debts (contracted for defence) discharged ; other- 
wise, we shall be millions worse than we were at that enviable 
period. Such a request, had it been complied with a year ago, 
would have won the heart and soul of the continent — but now it 
is too late : " The Rubicon is passed." 

Besides, the taking up arms, merely to Enforce the repeal of a 
pecuniary law, seems as unwarrantable b)' the divine law, and as 
repugnant to human feelings, as the taking up arms to enforce 
obedience thereto. The object, on either si*1s$ doth not justify 
the means ; for the lives of men are too valuable to* be cast away 
on such trifles. It is the violence which is dons' and threatened 
to our persons ; the destruction of our property hy an armed 
force ; the invasion of our country by fire and swcird, which con- 



COMMON SENSE. 63 

acientiously qualifies the use of arms : and the instant in whicn 
such mode of defence became necessary, all subjection to Britain 
ought to have ceased ; and the independence of America should 
have been considered as dating its era from, and published by, the 
first musket that was fired against her. This line is a line of con- 
sistency ; neither drawn by caprice, nor extended by ambition ; 
but produced by a chain of events, of which the colonies were not 
the authors. 

I shall conclude these remarks, with the following timely and 
well-intended hints. We ought to reflect, that there are three 
different ways by which an independency may hereafter be effect- 
ed ; and that one of those three, will, one day or other, be the fate 
of America, viz. By the legal voice of the people in congress ; 
by a military power ; or by a mob : it may not always happen 
that our soldiers are citizens, and the multitude a body of reason- 
able men ; virtue, as I have already remarked, is not hereditary, 
neither 13 it perpetual. Should an independency be brought 
about by the first of those means, we have every opportunity and 
every encouragment before us, to form the noblest, purest consti- 
tution on the face of the earth. "VYe have it in our power to be- 
gin the world over again. A situation, similar to the present, 
hath not happened since the days of Noah until now. The birth- 
day of a new world is at hand, and a race of men, perhaps as 
numerous as all Europe contains, are to receive their portion of 
freedom from the events of a iew months. The reflection is 
awful — and in this point of view, how trifling, how ridiculous, do 
the little paltry cavilings, of a few weak or interested men appear, 
when weighed against the business cf a world. 

Should we neglect the present favorable and inviting period, and 
independence be hereafter effected by any other means, we must 
charge the consequence to ourselves, or to those rather, whose 
narrow and prejudiced souls, are habitually opposing the measure, 
without either inquiring or reflecting. There are reasons to be 
given in support of independence, which men should rather pri- 
vately think of, than be publicly told of. We ought not now to be 
debating whether we shall be independent or not, but anxious to 
accomplish it on a firm* secure, and honorable basis, and uneasy 
rather, that it is not yet began upon. Every day convinces us of 
its necessity. Even the tories (if such beings yet remain among 
us) shoidd, of all men, bs the most solicitous to promote it ; for 



64 COMMON SENSE. 

as the appointment of committees at first, protected them from 
popular rage, so, a wise and well established form of government, 
will be the only certain means of continuing it securely to them. 
Wherefore, if they have not virtue enough to be Whigs, they 
ought to have prudence enough to wish for independence. 

In short, independence is the only bond that tie and keep us 
together. We shall then see our object, and our ears will be 
legally shut against the schemes of an intriguing, as well as cruel, 
enemy. We shall then, too, be on a proper footing to treat with 
Britain ; for there is reason to conclude, that the pride of that 
court will be less hurt by treating with the American states for 
terms of peace, than with those, whom she denominates ** rebel- 
lious subjects," for terms of accommodation. It is our delaying 
it that encourages her to hope for conquest, and our backwardness 
tends only to prolong the war. As we have, without any good 
effect therefrom, withheld our trade to obtain a redress of our 
grievances, let us noiv try the alternative, by independently 
redressing them ourselves, and^ then offering to open the trade. 
The mercantile and reasonable part of England, will be still with 
us ; because, peace, with trade, is preferable to war, without it. 
And if this offer be not accepted, other courts may be applied to. 

On those grounds I rest the matter. And as no offer hath yet 
been made to refute the doctrine contained in the former editions 
of this pamphlet, it is a negative proof, that either the doctrine 
cannot be refuted, or, that the party in favor of it are too numerous 
to be opposed. Wherefore, instead of gazing at each other, with 
suspicious or doubtful curiosity, let each of us hold out to his 
neighbor the hearty hand of friendship, and unite in drawing a 
line, which, like an act of oblivion, shall bury in forgetfulness 
every former dissention. Let the names of whig and tory be 
extinct ; and let none other be heard among us, than those of o 
good citizen ; an open and resolute friend ; and a virtuous s«»- 
porter of the rights of mankind, and of the free and in- 
dependent STATES OF AMERICA. 



END OF COMMON SENSE. 



EPISTLE TO QUAKERS. 



VOL. I. 



EPISTLE TO QUAKERS. 



To the Representatives of the Religious Society of the people 
called Quakers, or to so many of them as were concerned in pub' 
lishing a late piece, entitled " The ancient testimony and 
principles of the people called QUAKERS, renewed, with respect 
to the king and government, and touching the commotions 
now prevailing in these and other parts of America, addressed 
to the people in general. 

THE writer of this is one of those few who never dishonors 
religion, either by ridiculing or cavilling at any denomination 
whatsoever. To God, and not to man, are all men accountable 
on the score of religion. Wherefore, this epistle is not so pro- 
perly addressed to you as a religious, but as a political body 
dabbling in matters, which the professed quietude of your princi- 
ples instruct you not to meddle with. 

As you have, without a proper authority for so doing, put your- 
selves in the place of the whole body of the Quakers, so the 
writer of this, in order to be in an equal rank with yourselves, is 
under the necessity of putting himself in the place of all those 
who approve the very writings and principles against which your 
Testimony is directed : and he hath chosen their singular situa- 
tion, in order that you might discover in him, that presumption of 
character which you cannot see in yourselves. For neither he 
nor you have any claim or title to Political Representation* 

When men have departed from the right way, it is no wonder 
that they stumble and fall. And it is evident from the manner 



08 EPISTLE TO QUAKERS. 

in which ye have managed your Testimony, that politics (as a 
religious body of men) is not your proper walk ; for however 
well adapted it might appear to you, it is, nevertheless, a jumble 
of good and bad unwisely put together, and the conclusion drawn 
therefrom both unnatural and unjust. 

The two first pages (and the whole doth make but four) we give 
you credit for, and expect the same civility from you, because the 
love and desire of* peace is not confined to Quakerism, it is the 
natural, as well as the religious wish of all denominations of men. 
And on this ground, as men laboring to establish an Independent 
Constitution of our own, do we exceed all others in our hope, 
end and aim. Our plan is peace for ever. We are tired of con- 
tention with Britain, and can see no real end to it but in a final 
separation. We act consistently, because, for the sake of intro- 
ducing an endless and uninterrupted peace, do we bear the evils 
and the burdens of the present day. We are endeavoring, and 
will steadily continue to endeavor, to separate and dissolve a 
connexion which has already filled our land with blood ; and 
which, while the name of it remains, will be the fatal cause of 
future mischiefs to both countries. 

We fight neither for revenge nor conquest ; neither from pride 
nor passion ; we are not insulting the world with our fleets and 
armies, nor ravaging the globe for plunder. Beneath the shade 
of our own vines are we attacked ; in our own houses, and on 
our own lands, is the violence committed against us. We view 
our enemies in the characters of highwaymen and housebreakers, 
and having no defence for ourselves in the civil law, are obliged 
to punish them by the military one, and apply the sword, in the 
very case where you have before now applied the halter. 
Perhaps we feel for the ruined and insulted sufferers in all and 
every part of the continent, with a degree of tenderness which 
hath not yet made its way into some of your bosoms. But be 
ye sure that ye mistake not the cause and ground of your Testi- 
mony. Call not coldness of soul, religion ; nor put the bigot in 
the place of the Christian. 

O ! ye partial ministers of your own acknowledged principles ! 
If the bearing arms be sinful, the first going to war must be 
more so, by all the difference between wilful attack and unavoid- 
able defence. 

Wherefore, if ye really preach from conscience, and mean not 



EPISTLE TO QUAKERS. 69 

to make a political hobby-horse of your religion, convince the 
worid thereof, by proclaiming your doctrine to our enemies, for 
they likewise bear arms. Give us proof of your sincerity, by 
publishing it at St. James's, to the commanders-in-chief at Bos- 
ton, to the admirals and captains who are piratically ravaging our 
coasts, and to all the murdering miscreants who are acting in au- 
thority under him whom ye profess to serve. Had ye the honest 
soul of Barclay* ye would preach repentance to your king : yc 
would tell the royal tyrant of his sins, and warn him of eternal 
ruin. Ye would not spend your partial invectives against the in- 
jured and insulted only, but, like faithful ministers, would cry 
aloud and spare none. Say not that ye are persecuted, neither 
endeavor to make us the authors of that reproach, which ye are 
bringing upon yourselves ; for we testify unto all men, that we do 
not complain against you because ye are QualerSy but because 
ye pretend to be and are not Quakers. 

Alas ! it seems by the particular tendency of some part of your 
Testimony, and other parts of your conduct, as if all sin wa3 re- 
duced to, and comprehended in, the act of bearing arms, and that by 
the people only. Yc appear to us to have mistaken party for 
conscience ; because the general tenor of your actions wants 
uniformity ; and it is exceedingly difficult for us to give credit to 
many of your pretended scruples ; because we see them made by 
the same men, who, in the very instant that they arc exclaiming 
against the mammon of this world, are nevertheless, hunting 
after it with a step as steady as time, and an appetite as keen as 
death. 

The quotation which ye have made from Proverbs, in the third 
page of your Testimony, that " when a man's ways please the 
Lord, he maketh even his enemies to be at peace with him ;" is 
very unwisely chosen on your part ; because it amounts to a 



* " Thou hast tasted of prosperity and adversity ; thou knowest what it 
is to be banished thy native country, to be over-ruled as well as to rule, and 
sit upon the throne: and being oppressed thou hast reason to know how hate- 
ful the oppressor is both to God and man ; if after all these warnings and ad 
vertisements, thou dost not turn unto the Lord with all thy heart, but forget 
him who remembered thee in thy distress, and give up thyself to follow lust 
and vanity, surely, great will be thy condemnation. — Against which snare, as 
well as the temptation of those who may or do feed thee, and prompt thee 
to evil, the most excellent and prevalent remedy will be, to apply thyself 
to that light of Christ which shineth in thy conscience, and which neither can 
nor will flatter thee, nor suffer thee to be at ease in thy sins." 

Barclay's Jlddress to Charles II, 



70 EPISTLE TO QUAKERS. 

proof that the king's ways (whom ye are so desirous of support- 
ing) do not please the Lord, otherwise his reign would be in 
peace. 

I now proceed to the latter part of your Testimony, and that, 
for which all the foregoing seems only an introduction, viz. 

" It hath ever been our judgment and principle, since we were 
called to profess the light of Christ Jesus, manifested in our con- 
sciences unto this day, that the setting up and putting down kings 
and governments, is God's peculiar prerogative ; for causes best 
known to himself: and that it is not our business to have any 
hand or contrivance therein ; nor to be busy-bodies above our 
station, much less to plot and contrive the ruin, or overturn of 
any of them, but to pray for the king, and safety of our nation, 
and good of all men : that we may live a quiet and peaceable life 
in all godliness and honesty ; under the government ivhich God 
is pleased to set over us." If these are really your principles why 
do ye not abide by them ? Why do ye not leave that, which ye 
call God's work to be managed by himself? These very princi- 
ples instruct you to wait with patience and humility, for the event 
of all public measures, and to receive that event as the divine will 
towards you. Wherefore, what occasion is there for your politi- 
cal Testimony, if you fully believe what it contains 1 And the 
very publishing it proves, that either ye do not believe what ye 
profess, or have not virtue enough to practice what ye believe. 

The principles of Quakerism have a direct tendency to make a 
man the quiet and inoffensive subject of any, and every govern- 
ment which is set over him. And if the setting up and putting 
down of kings and governments is God's peculiar prerogative, he 
most certainly will not be robbed thereof by us ; wherefore, the 
principle itself leads you to approve of every thing, which ever 
happened, or may happen to kings, as being his work. Oliver 
Cromwell thanks you. — Charles, then, died not by the hands of 
man ; and should the present proud imitator of him come to the 
same untimely end, the writers and publishers of the Testimony 
are bound, by the doctrine it contains, to applaud the fact. Kings 
are not taken away by miracles, neither are changes in govern- 
ments brought about by any other means than such as are com- 
mon and human ; and such as we now are using. Even the dis- 
persing of the Jews, though foretold by our Saviour, was effected 
by arms. Wherefore, as ye refuse to be the means on one side, 



fcflSTLE TO (iUAKEllS. 71 

ye ought not to be meddlers on the other; but to wait the issue in si- 
lence; and, unless you can produce divine authority to prove that 
the Almighty, who hath created and placed this new world at the 
greatest distance it could possibly stand, east and west, from every 
part of the old, doth, nevertheless, disapprove of its being indepen- 
dent of the corrupt and abandoned court of Britain; unless, I say, 
ye can show this, how can ye, on the ground of your principles, jus- 
tify the exciting and stirring up the people " firmly to unite in the 
abhorrence of all such writings, and measures, as evince a desire 
and design to break off the happy connexion we have hitherto 
enjoyed with the kingdom of Great Britain, and our just and ne- 
cessary subordination to the king, and those who are lawfully 
placed in authority under him." What a slap in the face is here ! 
the men, who, in the very paragraph before, have quietly and 
passively resigned up the ordering, altering and disposal of kings 
and governments, into the hands of God, are now recalling their 
principles, and putting in for a share of the business. Is it possi- 
ble, that the conclusion, which is here justly quoted, can any ways 
follow from the doctrine laid down ! The inconsistency is too 
glaring not to be seen ; the absurdity too great not to be laughed 
at ; and such as could only have been made by those whose un- 
derstandings were darkened by the narrow and crabbed spirit of 
a despairing political party ; for ye are not to be considered as 
the whole body of the Quakers, but only as a factional and frac- 
tional part thereof. 

Here ends the examination of your Testimony ; (which I call 
upon no man to abhor, as ye have done, but only to read and 
judge of fairly) to which I subjoin the following remark ; " that 
the setting up and putting down of kings" must certainly mean, 
the making him a king, who is yet not so, and the making him 
no king who is already one. And pray what hath this to do in 
the present case ? We neither mean to set up nor to put down, 
neither to make nor to unmake, but to have nothing to do with 
them. Wherefore, your Testimony, in whatever light it is 
viewed, serves only to dishonor your judgment, and for many 
other reasons had better have been let alone than published. 

1st, Because it tends to the decrease and reproach of all reli- 
gion whatever, and it is of the utmost danger to society, to make 
it a party in political disputes. 

2d, Because it exhibits a body of men, numbers of whom dis- 



72 EPISTLE TO QUAKERS. 

avow the publishing of political testimonies, as being concerned 
therein and approvers thereof. 

3d, Because it hath a tendency to undo that continental har- 
mony and friendship which yourselves, by your late liberal and 
charitable donations, hath lent a hand to establish ; and the 
preservation of which, is of the utmost consequence to us all. 

And here, without anger or resentment, I bid you farewell. 
Sincerely wishing, that as men and Christians, ye may always 
fully and uninterruptedly enjoy every civil and religious right ; 
and be, in your turn, the means of securing it to others ; but that 
the example which yc have unwisely set, of mingling religion 
with politics, may be disavowed and reprobated bij every inhabi- 
tant of America. 

END OP EPISTLE TO QUAKERS. 



THE CRISIS 



VOL I. JO 



THE CRISIS, 



NO. I 

THESE are the times that try men's souls. The summer 
soldier and the sunshine patriot will, in this crisis, shrink from 
the service of his country ; but he that stands it now, deserves 
the love and thanks of man and woman. Tyranny, like hell, is 
not easily conquered ; yet we have this consolation with us, that 
the harder the conflict, the more glorious the triumph. What we 
obtain too cheap, we esteem too lightly : 'tis dearness only that 
gives every thing its value. Heaven knows how to put a proper 
price upon its goods ; and it would be strange indeed, if so ce- 
lestial an article as freedom should not be highly rated. Britain, 
with an army to enforce her tyranny, has declared that she 
has a right (not only to tax) but " to bind us in all cases what- 
soever," and if being bound in that manner, is not slavery, then 
is there not such a thing as slavery upon earth. Even the ex- 
pression is impious, for so unlimited a power can belong only to 
God. 

Whether the independence of the continent was declared too 
soon, or delayed too long, I will not now enter into as an argu- 
ment ; my own simple opinion is, that had it been eight months 
earlier, it would have been much better. We did not make a 
proper use of last winter, neither could we, while we were in a 
dependant state. However, the fault, if it were one, was all our 
own ; we have none to blame but ourselves. But no great deal 
it lost yet ; all that Howe has been doing for this month past, is 
rather a ravage than a conquest, which the spirit of the Jerseys 
a year ago would have quickly repulsed, and which time and a 
little resolution will soon recover. 



?6 THE CRISIS. 

I have as little superstition in me as any man living, but my 
secret opinion has ever been, and still is, that God Almighty will 
not give up a people to military destruction, or leave Ihem unsup- 
portedly to perish, who have so earnestly and so repeatedly 
sought to avoid the calamities of war, by every decent method 
which wisdom could invent. Neither have I so much of the in- 
fidel in me, as to suppose that He has relinquished the govern- 
ment of the world, and given us up to the care of devils ; and as 
I do not, I cannot see on what grounds the king of Britain can 
look up to heaven for help against us : a common murdere-, a 
highwayman, or a house-breaker, has as good a pretence as he. 

'Tis surprising to see how rapidly a panic will sometimes run 
through a countrv. All nations and ages have been subject to 
them : Britain has trembled like an ague at the report of a French 
fleet of flat bottomed boats ; and in the fourteenth century the 
whole English army, afler ravaging the kingdom of France, was 
driven back like men petrified with fear ; and this brave exploit 
was performed by a few broken forces collected and headed by a 
woman, Joan of Arc. Would that heaven might inspire some 
Jersey maid to spirit up her countrymen, and save her fair fellow 
sufferers from ravage and ravishment ! Yet panics, in some 
cases, have their uses ; they produce as much good as hurt. 
Their duration is always short ; the mind soon grows through 
them, and acquires a firmer habit than before. But their peculiar 
advantage is, that they are the touchstones of sincerity and hypo- 
crisy, and bring things and men to light, which might otherwise 
have lain forever undiscovered. In fact, they have the same ef- 
fect on secret traitors, which an imaginary apparition would have 
upon a private murderer. They sift out the hidden thoughts of 
man, and hold them up in public to the world. Many a disguised 
tory has lately shown his head, that shall penitentially solemnize 
with curses the day on which Howe arrived upon the Delaware. 

As I was with the troops at fort Lee, and marched with them to 
the edge of Pennsylvania, I am well acquainted with many cir- 
cumstances, which those who live at a distance, know but little or 
nothing of. Our situation there, was exceedingly cramped, the 
place being a narrow neck of land between the North River and 
the Hackensack. Our force was inconsiderable, being not one 
fourth so great as Howe could bring against us. We had no ar- 
my at hand to have relieved the garrison, had we shut our- 



THE CRISIS 77 

■elves up and stood on our defence. Our ammunition, light ar- 
tillery, and the best part of our stores, had been removed, on the 
apprehension that Howe would endeavor to penetrate the Jerseys, 
iii whieh case fort Lee could be of no use to us ; for it must oc- 
cur to every thinking man, whether in the army or not, that these 
kind of lidd forts arc only for temporary purposes, and last in 
n>e nu longer than the en -my directs his force against the parti- 
cular object, which such torts are raised to defend. Such was 
our situation and condition at fort Lee OD the morning of the 20th 

of November, when in officer arrived with information that the 

6 lenrp with 200 boats had landed about BeV6TJ miles above : Ma- 

jor General Green, who commanded the garrison, immediately 

ordered them under arm-, an. I SCttl expire to (General \\ ishill 

ton at the town of Hackerwack, distant by the way of the ferry, 

si] miles. Our lit. t object was to secure the bridge i ?er t he 

Hackensack, which laid up the river between the enemy and us, 

about six miles from u<, and three from them. General Wash- 
ington arrived in about three quarters <>t" an hour, and marched at 
the head of the troops towards the bridge, which place I expected 
We should have a brush for ; however, thev did not choose to dis- 
pute it with as, '<\n*\ the greatest part of our troops went over the 
bridge, the rest over the ferry, except some which passed at a 
mill on: small creek, between the bridge and the terry, and made 
their way through some marshy grounds up to the town of Hac- 
kensack, and there passed the river. We brought off as much 
age as the wagons could contain, the rest was lost. The 
simple object was to bring off the garrison, and march them on 
till they could be strengthened by the Jersey or Pennsylvania mi- 
litia, so as to be enabled to make a stand. We staid four days at 
Newark, collected our out-posts with some of the Jerse) militia, 
and marched out twice to meet the enemy, on being informed that 
they were advancing, though our numbers were greatly inferior 
to theirs. Howe, in my little opinion, committed a great error in 
generalship in not throwing a body of forces off from Staten Island 
through Amboy, by which means he might have seized all our 
stores at Brunswick, and intercepted our march into Pennsylva- 
nia : but if we believe the power of hell to be limited, we must 
likewise believe that their agents are under some providential 
contro' , 



73 THE CRISIS. 

I shall not now attempt to give all the particulars of our retreat 
to the Delaware ; suffice it for the present to say, that both offi- 
cers and men, though greatly harrassed and fatigued, frequently 
without rest, covering, or provision, the inevitable consequences 
of a long retreat, bore it with a manly and martial spirit. All 
their wishes centered in one, which was, that the country would 
turn out and help them to drive the enemy back. Voltaire has 
remarked that king William never appeared to full advantage but 
in difficulties and in action ; the same remark may be made on 
General Washington, for the character fits him. There is a na- 
tural firmness in some minds which cannot be unlocked by trifles, 
but which, when unlocked, discovers a cabinet of fortitude ; and 
I reckon it among those kind of public blessings, which we do not 
immediately see, that God hath blest him with uninterrupted 
health, and given him a mind that can even flourish upon care. 

I shall conclude this paper with some miscellaneous remarks 
on the state of our affairs ; and shall begin with asking the fol- 
lowing question, Why is it that the enemy have left the NeW- 
England provinces, and made these middle ones the seat of war ? 
The answer is easy : New-England is not infested with tories* 
and we are. I have been tender in raising the cry against these 
men, and used numberless arguments to show them their danger, 
but it will not do to sacrifice a world either to their folly or their 
baseness. The period is now arrived, in which either they or we 
must change our sentiments, or one or both must fall. And 
what is a tory 1 Good God ! what is he ? I should not be afraid 
to go with a hundred whigs against a thousand tories, were they 
to attempt to get into arms. Every tory is a coward ; for ser- 
vile, slavish, self-interested fear is the foundation of toryism ; 
and a man under such influence, though he may be cruel, never 
can be brave. 

But, before the line of irrecoverable separation be drawn be- 
tween us, let us reason the matter together : your conduct is an 
invitation to the enemy, yet not one in a thousand of you has 
heart enough to join him. Howe is as much deceived by you 
as the American cause is injured by you. He expects you will 
all take up arms, and flock to his standard, with muskets on your 
shoulders. Your opinions are of no use to him, unless you sup- 
port him personally, for 'tis soldiers, and not tories, that he 
wants. 



THE CRISIS. 79 

I ones felt all that kind of anger, which a man ought to feel, 
against the mean principles that are held by the tories : a noted 
one, who kept a tavern at Amboy, was standing at his door, with 
as pretty a child in his hand, about eight or nine years old, as I 
ever saw, and after speaking his mind as freely as he thought was 
prudent, finished with this unfatherly expression, *' Well ! give 
me peace in my day." Not a man lives on the continent but fully 
believes that a separation must some time or other finally take 
place, and a generous parent should have said, " Jf there must 
be trouble, let it be in my day, that my child may have peace ;" 
and this single reflection, well applied, is sufficient to awaken 
every man to duty. Not a place upon earth might be so happy 
as America. Her situation is remote from all the wrangling 
world, and she has nothing to do out to trade with them. A man 
can distinguish in himself between temper and principle, and 
J am as confident, as I am that God governs the world, that 
America will never be happy till she gets clear of foreign domi- 
nion. Wars, without ceasing, will break out till that period ar- 
rives, and the continent must in the end be conqueror ; for though 
the flame of liberty may sometimes cease to shine, the coal can 
never expire. 

America did not, nor does not want force ; but she wanted a 
proper application of that force. Wisdom is not the purchase of 
a day, and it is no wonder that we should err at the first setting 
off. From an excess of tenderness, we were unwilling to raise 
an army, and trusted our cause to the temporary defence of a 
well-meaning militia. ' A summer's experience has now taught us 
better ; yet with those troops, while they were collected, we were 
able to set bounds to the progress of the enemy, and, thank God ! 
they are again assembling. I always considered militia as the 
best troops in the world for a sudden exertion, but they will not 
do for a long campaign. Howe, it is probable, will make an at- 
tempt on this city ; should he fail on this side the Delaware, he is 
ruined : if he succeeds, our cause is not ruined. He stakes all 
oi his side against a part on ours ; admitting he succeeds, the 
consequence will be, that armies from both ends of the continent 
will march to assist their suffering friends in the middle states ; 
for he cannot go every where, it is impossible. I consider Howe 
as the greatest enemy the tories have ; he is bringing a war into 
their country, which, had it not been for him and partly for them* 



80 THE CRISIS 

selves, they had been clear of. Should he now be expelled, I wish 
with all the devotion of a Christian, that the names of whig and 
tory may never more be mentioned ; but should the tories give him 
encouragement to come, or assistance if he come, I as sincerely 
wish that our next year's arms may expel them from the continent, 
and the congress appropriate their possessions to the relief of 
those who have suffered in well-doing. A single successful bat- 
tle next year will settle the whole. America could carry on a two 
years war by the confiscation of the property of disaffected per- 
sons, and be made happy by their expulsion. Say not that this is 
revenge, call it rather the soft resentment of a sUiTering people, 
who, having no object in view but the good of all, have staked 
their own all upon a seemingly doubtful event. Yet it is folly to 
argue against determined hardness ; eloquence may strike the 
ear, and the language of sorrow draw forth the tear of compas- 
sion, but nothing can reach the heart that is steeled with preju- 
dice. 

Quitting this class of men, I turn with the warm ardor of a 
friend to those who have nobly stood, and are yet determined to 
stand the matter out : I call not upon a few, but upon all : not on 
this state or that state, but on every state ; up and help us ; lay 
your shoulders to the wheel ; better have too much force than too 
little, when so great an object is J at stake. Let it be told to the 
future world, that in the depth of winter, when nothing but hope 
and virtue could survive, that the city and the country, alarmed at 
one common danger, came forth to meet and to repulse it. Say 
not that thousands are gone, turn out your tens of thousands ; 
throw not the burden of the day upon Providence, but " show 
your faith by your works," that God may bless you, It matters 
not where you live, or what rank of life you hold, the evil or the 
blessing will reach you all. The far and the near, the home 
counties and the back, the rich and the poor, will suffer or rejoice 
alike. The heart that feels not now, is dead : the blood of his 
children will curse his cowardice, who shrinks back at a time 
when a little might have saved the whole, and made them happy. 
I love the man that can smile in trouble, that can gather strength 
from distress, and grow brave by reflection. 'Tis the business of 
little minds to shrink ; but he whose heart is firm, and whose con- 
science approves his conduct, will pursue his principles unto 
death. My own line of reasoning is to myself as straight and 



THE CRISIS, 81 

clear as a ray of light. Not all the treasures of the world, so far 
as I believe, could have induced me to support an offensive war 
for I think it murder ; but if a thief breaks into my house, burns 
and destroys my property, and kills or threatens to kill me, or 
those that are in it, and to •* bind me in all cases whatsoever," to 
his absolute will, am I to suffer it ? What signifies it to me, whe- 
ther he who does it is a king or a common man ; my countryman 
or not my countryman ; whether it be done by an individual viU 
lain, or an army of them ? If we reason to the root of things we 
shall find no difference ; neither can any just cause be assigned 
why we should punish in the one case and pardon in the other, 
Let them call me rebel, and welcome, I feel no concern from it { 
but I should suffer the misery of devils, were I to make a whore 
of my soul by swearing allegiance to one whose character is that 
of a sottish, stupid, stubborn, worthless, brutish man. I conceive 
likewise a horrid idea in receiving mercy from a being, who at the 
last day shall be shrieking to the rocks and mountains to cover 
him, and fleeing with terror from the orphan, the widow, and the 
slain of America. 

There are cases which cannot be overdone by language, and 
this is one. There are persons too who see not the full extent of 
the evi\ which threatens them, they solace themselves with hopes 
that tne enemy, if he succeed, will be merciful. It is the mad* 
ness of folly, to expect mercy from those who have refused to do 
justice ; and even mercy, where conquest is the object, is only a 
trick of war ; the cunning of the fox is as murderous as the vior 
lence of the wolf ; and we ought to guard equally against both. 
Howe's first object is partly by threats and partly by promises, to 
terrify or seduce the people to deliver up their arms and receiye 
mercy. The ministry recommended the same plan to Gage, and 
this is what the tories call making their peace, " a peace which 
passeth all understanding" indeed ! A peace which would be the 
immediate forerunner of a worse ruin than any we have yet 
tnought of. Ye men of Pennsylvania, do reason upon these 
things ! Were the back counties to give up their arms, they 
would fall an easy prey to the Indians, who are all armed : this 
perhaps is what some tories would not be sorry for. Were the 
home counties to deliver up their arms, they would be exposed to 
the resentment of the back counties, who would then have it in 
their power to chastise their defection at pleasure. And were 
vol. i. U 



81 THE CRISIS. 

any one state to give up its arms, that state must be garrisoned 
by all Howe's army of Britons and Hessians to preserve it from 
the anger of the rest. Mutual fear is the principal link in the 
chain of mutual love, and wo be to that state that breaks the com- 
pact. Howe is mercifully inviting you to barbarous destruction, 
and men must be either rogues or fools that will not see it. I 
dwell not upon the powers of imagination ; I bring reason to 
your ears ; and in language as plain as A, B, C, hold up truth to 
your eyes. 

I thank God that I fear not. I see no real cause for fear. I 
know our situation well, and can see the way out of it. While 
our army was collected, Howe dared not risk a battle, and it is no 
credit to him that he decamped from the White Plains, and waited 
a mean opportunity to ravage the defenceless Jerseys ; but it is 
great credit to us, that, with a handful of men, we sustained an 
orderly retreat for near an hundred miles, brought off our ammu- 
nition, all our field pieces, the greatest part of our stores, and had 
four rivers to pass. None can say that our retreat was precipi- 
tate, for we were near three weeks in performing it, that the coun- 
try might have time to come in. Twice we marched back to 
meet the enemy, and remained out till dark. The sign of fear 
was not seen in our camp, and had not some of the cowardly and 
disaffected inhabitants spread false alarms through the country, 
the Jerseys had never been ravaged. Once more we are again 
collected and collecting, our new army at both ends of the conti- 
nent is recruiting fast, and we shall be able to open the next 
campaign with sixty thousand men, well armed and clothed. 
This is our situation, and who will may know it. By perseve- 
rance and fortitude we have the prospect of a glorious issue ; by 
cowardice and submission, the sad choice of a variety of evils — 
a ravaged country — a depopulated city — habitations without 
safety, and slavery without hope — our homes turned into barracks 
and bawdy-houses for Hessians, and a future race to provide for, 
whose fathers we shall doubt of. Look on this picture and weep 
over it ! and if there yet remains one thoughtless wretch who be- 
lieves it not, let him suffer it unlamented. 

COMMON SENSE. 
December 23 1776. 



THE CRISIS, 



aro. zz. 



TO LORD HOWE. 



What's in the name of lord that I should fear 
To bring my grievance to the public ear ? 

Churchill. 

Universal empire is the prerogative of a writer. His con- 
cerns are with all mankind, and though he cannot command their 
obedience, he can assign them their duty. The Republic of 
Letters is more ancient than monarchy, and of far higher charac- 
ter in the world than the vassal court of Britain ; he that rebels 
against reason is a real rebel, but he that in defence of reason, 
rebels against tyranny, has a better title to " Defender of the 
Faith," than George the third. 

As a military man your lordship may hold out the sword of 
war, and call it the " ultima ratio regwn ;" the last reason of 
Kings ; we in return can show you the sword of justice, and call 
it, " the best scourge of tyrants." The first of these two may 
threaten, or even frighten for a while, and cast a sickly languor 
over an insulted people, but reason will soon recover the debauch f 
and restore them again to tranquil fortitude. Your lordship, X 
find, has now commenced author, and published a Proclamation ; 
I have published a Crisis ; as they stand, they are the antipodes 
of each other ; both cannot rise at once, and one of them must 
descend ; and so quick is the revolution of things, that your lord- 
ship's performance, I see, has already fallen many degrees from 
its first place, and is now just visible on the edge of the political 
horizon. 

It is surprising to what a pitch of infatuation, blind folly and 
obstinacy will carry mankind, and your lordship's drowsy 
proclamation is a proof that it does not even quit them in 
their sleep. Perhaps you thought America too was taking a nap, 
and therefore chose, like Satan to Eve, to whisper the delusion 



84 THE CRISIS. 

softly, lest you should awaken her. This continent sir, is too 
extensive to sleep all at once, and too watchful, even in its slum- 
bers, not to startle at the unhallowed foot of an invader. You 
may issue your proclamations* and welcome* for we have learned 
to u reverence ourselves," and scorn the insulting ruffian that 
employs you. America, for your deceased brother's sake, would 
gladly have shown you respect, and it is "a new aggravation to her 
feelings, that Howe should be forgetful, and raise his sword 
against those, who at their own charge raised a monument to 
his brother. But your master has commanded, and you have 
not enough of nature left to refuse. Surely ! there must be some- 
thing strangely degenerating in the love of monarchy, that can so 
completely wear a man down to an ingrate, and make him proud 
to lick the dust that kings have trod upon. A few more years, 
should you survive them, will bestow on you the title of " an old 
man :" and in some hour of future reflection you may probably 
find the fitness of Wolsey's despairing penitence — " had I served 
my God as faithfully as I have served my king, he would not thus 
have forsaken me in my old age." 

The character you appear to us in, is truly ridiculous. Your 
friends, the tories* announced your coming, with high descrip- 
tions of your unlimited powers ; but your proclamation has given 
them the lie, by showing you to be a commissioner without au- 
thority. Had your powers been ever so great, they were nothing 
to us, further than we pleased ; because we had the same right 
which other nations had, to do what we thought was best. 
" The united states of America," will sound as pompously in 
the world or in history, as " the kingdom of Great Britain ;" the 
character of General Washington will fill a page with as much 
lustre as that of Lord Howe : and the congress have as much 
right to command the king and parliament in London, to desist 
from legislation, as they or you have to command the congress. 
Only suppose how laughable such an edict would appear from us, 
and then, in that merry mood, do but turn the tables upon your- 
self, and you will see how your proclamation is received here. 
Having thus placed you in a proper position in which you may 
have a full view of your folly, and learn to despise it, I hold up to 
you, for that purpose, the following quotation from your own 
lunarian proclamation. — " And we (lord Howe and general 
Howe) do command (and in his majesty's name forsooth) all 



THE CRISIS. 85 

such persons as are assembled together, under the name of 
general or provincial congresses, committees, conventions or other 
associations, by whatever name or names known and distin- 
guished, to desist and cease from all such treasonable actings 
and doings." 

You introduce your proclamation by referring to your declara- 
tions of the 14th of July and 19th of September. In the last of 
these, you sunk yourself below the character of a private gentle- 
man. That I may not seem to accuse you unjustly, I shall state 
the circumstance : by a verbal invitation of yours, communicated 
to congress by General Sullivan, then a prisoner on his parole, 
you signified your desire of conferring with some members of 
that body as private gentlemen. It was beneath the dignity of 
the American congress to pay any regard to a message that at 
best was but a genteel affront, and had too much of the ministe- 
rial complexion of tampering with private persons ; and which 
might probably have been the case, had the gentlemen who were 
deputed on the business, possessed that kind of easy virtue which 
an English courtier is so truly distinguished by. Your request, 
however, was complied with, for honest men are naturally more 
tender of their civil than their political fame. The interview 
ended as every sensible man thought it would ; for your lordship 
knows, as well as the writer of the Crisis, that it is impossible for 
the king of England to promise the repeal, or even the revisal of 
any acts of parliament ; wherefore, on your part, you had nothing 
to say, more than to request, in the room of demanding, the entire 
surrender of the continent ; and then, if that was complied with, 
to promise that the inhabitants should escape with their lives. 
This was the upshot of the conference. You informed the con- 
ferees that you were two months in soliciting these powers. We 
ask, what powers 1 for as commissioner you have none. If you 
mean the power of pardoning, it is an oblique proof that your 
master was determined to sacrifice all before him ; and that you 
were two months in dissuading him from his purpose. Another 
evidence of his savage obstinacy ! From your own account of 
the matter we may justly draw these two conclusions : 1st* That 
you serve a monster ; and 2d, That never was a messenger sent 
on a more foolish errand than yourself. This plain language may 
perhaps sound uncouthly to an ear vitiated by courtly refinements j 



86 THE CIU9I8. 

but words were made for use* and the fault lies in deserving thera» 
or the abuse in applying them unfairly. 

Soon after your return to New- York, you published a very illi- 
beral and unmanly handbill against the congress ; for it was cer- 
tainly stepping out of the line of common civility, first to screen 
your national pride by soliciting an interview with them as private 
gentlemen, and in the conclusion to endeavor to deceive the mul- 
titude by making a handbill attack on the whole body of the con- 
gress ; you got them together under one name, and abused them 
under another. But the king you serve, and the cause you sup- 
port, afford you so few instances of acting the gentleman, that out 
of pity to your situation the congress pardoned the insult by taking 
no notice of it. 

You say in that handbill, " that they, the congress, disavowea 
every purpose for reconciliation not consonant with their extrava- 
gant and inadmissable claim of independence." Why, God bless 
me ! what have you to do with our independence 1 We ask no 
leave of yours to set it up ; we ask no money of yours to support 
it ; we can do better without your fleets and armies than with 
them ; you may soon have enough to do to protect yourselves 
without being burdened with us. We are very willing to be at 
peace with you, to buy of you and sell to you, and, like young be- 
ginners in the world, to work for our living ; therefore, why do 
you put yourselves out of cash, when we know you cannot spare 
it, and we do not desire you to run into debt 1 I am willing, sir, 
that you should see your folly in every point of view I can place it 
in, and for that reason descend sometimes to tell you in jest what 
I wish you to see in earnest. But to be more serious with you, 
why do you say, " their independence V To set you right, sir, 
we tell you, that the independency is ours, not theirs. The con- 
gress were authorised by every state on the continent to publish 
it to all the world, and in so doing are not to be considered as the 
inventors, but only as the heralds that proclaimed it, or the office 
from which the sense of the people received a legal form ; and it 
was as much as any or all their heads were worth, to have treated 
with you on the subject of submission under any name whatever. 
But we know the men in whom we have- trusted ; can England 
say the same of her parliament ? 

I come now more particularly to your proclamation of the 30th 
of November last Had you gained an entire conquest over ail 



THE CRISIS. 87 

the armies of America, and then put forth a proclamation, offering 
(what youcall) mercy, your conduct would have had some specious 
show of humanity ; but to creep by surprise into a province, and 
there endeavor to terrify and seduce the inhabitants from their just 
allegiance to the rest by promises, which you neither meant, nor 
were able to fulfil, is both cruel and unmanly : cruel in its effects; 
because, unless you can keep all the ground you have marched 
over, how are you, in the words of your proclamation, to secure 
to your proselytes " the enjoyment of their property 1" What is to 
become either of your new adopted subjects, or your old friends, 
the tories, in Burlington, Bordentown, Trenton, Mountholly, and 
many other places, where you proudly lorded it for a few days, 
and then fled with the precipitation of a pursued thief? What, I 
say, is to become of those wretches ? What is to become of thoso 
who went over to you from this city and state ? What more can 
you can you say to them than " shift for yourselves ?" Or what 
more can they hope for than to wander like vagabonds over the 
face of the earth ? You may now tell them to take their leave 
of America, and all that once was theirs. Recommend them, 
for consolation, to your master's court ; there perhaps they may 
make a shift to live on the scraps of some dangling parasite, and 
choose companions among thousands like themselves. A traitor 
is the foulest fiend on earth. 

In a political sense we ought to thank you for thus bequeath- 
ing estates to the continent ; we shall soon, at this rate, be able 
to carry on a Avar without expense, and grow rich by the ill policy 
of lord Howe, and the generous defection of the tories. Had 
you set your foot into this city, you would have bestowed estates 
upon us which we never thought of, by bringing forth traitors we 
were unwilling to suspect. But these men, you'll say, " are his 
majesty's most faithful subjects ;" let that honor, then, be all 
their fortune, and let his majesty take them to himself. 

I am now thoroughly disgusted with them ; they live in un- 
grateful ease, and bend their whole minds to mischief. It seems 
as if God had given them over to a spirit of infidelity, and that 
they are open to conviction in no other line but that of punish- 
ment. It is time to have done with tarring, feathering, carting, 
and taking securities for then future good behaviour ; every sen- 
sible man must feel a conscious shame at seeing a poor fellow 
hawked for a show about the streets, when it is known he is only 



88 THE CRISIS. 

the tool of some principal villain, biassed into his offence by the 
force of false reasoning, or bribed thereto, through sad necessity 
We dishonor ourselves by attacking such trifling characters while 
greater ones are suffered to escape ; 'tis our duty to find them 
out, and their proper punishment would be to exile them from the 
continent for ever. The circle of them is not so great as some 
imagine ; the influence of a few have tainted many who are not 
naturally corrupt. A continual circulation of lies among those 
who are not much in the way of hearing them contradicted, will 
in time pass for truth ; and the crime lies not in the believer but 
the inventor. I am not for declaring war with every man that ap- 
pears not so warm as myself: difference of constitution, temper, 
habit of speaking, and many other things, will go a great way in 
fixing the outward character of a man, yet simple honesty may 
remain at bottom. Some men have naturally a military turn, and 
can brave hardships and the risk of life with a cheerful face ; 
others have not ; no slavery appears to them so great as the fa- 
tigue of arms, and no terror so powerful as that of personal dan- 
ger. What can we say? We cannot alter nature, neither ought 
we to punish the son because the father begot him in a cowardly 
mood. However, I believe most men have more courage than 
they know of, and that a little at first is enough to begin with. I 
knew the time when I thought that the whistling of a cannon ball 
would have frightened me almost to death : but I have since tried 
it, and find that I can stand it with as little discomposure, and, I 
believe, with a much easier conscience than your lordship. The 
same dread would return to me again were I in your situation, 
for my solemn belief of your cause is, that it is hellish and dam- 
nable, and, under that conviction, every thinking man's heart 
must fail him. 

From a concern that a good cause should be dishonored by 
the least disunion among us, I said in my former paper, No. 1, 
» That should the enemy now be expelled, I wish, with all the 
sincerity of a Christian, that the names of whig and tory might 
never more be mentioned," but there is a knot of men among us 
of such a venemous cast, that they will not admit even one's 
good wishes to act in their favor. Instead of rejoicing that 
heaven had, as it were, providentially preserved this city from 
plunder and destruction, by delivering so great a part of the 
{enemy into our hands with so little effusion of bjood, they stub- 



THE CRlStS. 89 

bornly affected to disbelieve it till within an hour, nay, half an 
hour, of the prisoners arriving ; and the Quakers put forth a tes- 
timony, dated the 20th of December, signed " John Pemberton," 
declaring their attachment to the British government.* These 
men are continually harping on the great sin of our bearing arms, 
but the king of Britain may lay waste the world in blood and fa- 
mine, and they, poor fallen souls, have nothing to say. 

In some future paper I intend to distinguish between the differ- 
ent kind of persons who have been denominated tories ; for this 
I am clear in, that all are not so who have been called so, nor all 
men whigs who were once thought so ; and as I mean not to 
conceal the name of any true friend when there shall be occasion 
to mention him, neither will I that of an enemy, who ought to be 
known, let his rank, station or religion be what it may. Much 
pains have been taken by some to set your lordship's private cha- 
racter in an amiable light, but as it has chiefly been done by men 
who know nothing about you, and who are no ways remarkable 
for their attachment to us, we have no just authority for believing 
it. George the third has imposed upon us by the same arts, but 
time, at length, has done him justice, and the same fate may pro- 
bably attend your lordship. Your avowed purpose here, is to 
kill, conquer, plunder, pardon, and enslave : and the ravages of 
your army through the Jerseys have been marked with as much 
barbarism as if you had openly professed yourself the prince 
of ruffians ; not even the appearance of humanity has been pre- 
served either on the march or the retreat of your troops ; no 
general order that I could ever learn, has ever been issued to pre- 
vent or even forbid your troops from robbery, wherever they 
came, and the only instance of justice, if it can be called such, 
which has distinguished you for impartiality, is, that you treated 
and plundered all alike ; what could not be carried away has 
been destroyed, and mahogany furniture has been deliberately 
laid on fire for fuel, rather than the men should be fatigued with 

* I have ever been careful of charging offences upon whole societies of men, 
but as the paper referred to is put forth by an unknown set of men, who claim 
to themselves the right of representing the whole : and while the whole so- 
ciety of Quakers admit its validity by a silent acknowledgment, it is impossi- 
ble that any distinction can be made by the public : and the more so, because 
the New- York paper of the 30th of Decembe, , printed by permission of our 
enemies, say? that " the Quakers begin to speak openly of their attachment to 
the British constitution." We are certain that we have many friends among 
them, and wish to know them. 

VOL. I. 12 



90 THE CRISIS. 

cutting wood.* There was a time when the whigs confided 
much in your supposed candor, and the tories rested themselves 
m your favor ; the experiments have now been made, and failed; 
in every town, nay, every cottage, in the Jerseys, where your 
arms have been, is a testimony against you. How you may rest 
under this sacrifice of character I know not ; but this I know, 
that you sleep and rise With the daily curses of thousands upon 
you ; perhaps the misery which the tories have suffered by your 
proffered meroy, may give them some claim to their country's 
pity, and be in the end the best favor you could show them. 

In a folio general-order book belonging to Col. RhoPs batta- 
lion, taken at Trenton, and now in the possession of the council 
of safety for this state, the following barbarous order is frequently 
repeated, " His excellency the commander-in-chief orders, that 
all inhabitants who sh?.ll be found with arms, not having an offi- 
cer with them, shall be immediately taken and hung up." How 
many you may thus have privately sacrificed, we know not, and 
the account can only be settled in another world. Your treat- 
ment of prisoners, in order to distress them to enlist into your 
infernal service, is not to be equalled by any instance in Europe. 
Yet this is the humane lord Howe and his brother, whom the to- 
ries and their three-quarter kindred, the Quakers, or some of 
them at least, have been holding up for patterns of justice and 
mercy ! 

A bad cause will ever be supported by bad means and bad 
men ; and whoever will be at the pains of examining strictly into 
things, will find that one and the same spirit of oppression and 
impiety, more or less, governs through your whole party in both 
countries : not many days ago, I accidentally fell in company 
with a person of this city noted for espousing your cause, and on 
my remarking to him, " that it appeared clear to me, by the late 
providential turn of affairs, that God Almighty was visibly on our 
side," he replied, " We care nothing for that, you may have Him, 
and welcome ; if we have but enough of the devil on our side, 
we shall do." However carelessly this might be spoken, matters 

* As some people may doubt the truth of such wanton destruction, I think 
it necessary to infbim them, that one of the people called Quakers, who lives 
at Trenton, gave me this information, at the house of Mr. Michael Hutchin- 
son, (one of the same profession,) who lives near Trenton ferry on the Penn- 
sylvania side, Mr, Hutchinson being oresent. 



THE CRISI8. 91 

not, His still the insensible principle that directs all your conduct, 
and will at last most assuredly deceive and ruin you. 

If ever a nation was mad and foolish, blind to its own interest 
and bent on its own destruction, it is Britain. There are such 
things as national sins, and though the punishment of individuals 
may be reserved to another world, national punishment can only 
be inflicted in this world. Britain, as a nation, is, in my inmost 
belief, the greatest and most ungrateful ofFender against God on 
the face of the whole earth : blessed with all the commerce she 
could wish for, and furnished, by a vast extension of dominion, 
with the means of civilizing both the eastern and western world, 
she has made no other use of both than proudly to idolize her 
own " thunder," and rip up the bowels of whole countries for 
what she could get : Like Alexander, she has made war her 
sport, and inflicted misery for prodigality's sake. The blood of 
India is not yet repaid, nor the wretchedness of Africa yet re- 
quited. Of late she has enlarged her list of national cruelties, 
by her butcherly destruction of the Caribbs of St. Vincents, and 
returning an answer by the sword to the meek prayer for " Peace, 
liberty and safety, 11 These are serious things, and whatever a 
foolish tyrant, a debauched court, a trafficing legislature, or a 
blinded people may think, the national account with heaven must 
some day or other be settled : all countries have sooner or later 
been called to their reckoning ; the proudest empires have sunk 
when the balance was struck ; and Britain, like an individual 
penitent must undergo her day of sorrow, and the sooner it hap- 
pens to her the better : as I wish it over, I wish it to come, but 
withal wish that it may be as light as possible. 

Perhaps your lordship has no taste for serious things ; by your 
connexions in England I should suppose not : therefore I shall 
drop this part of the subject, and take it up in a line in which you 
will better understand me. 

By what means, may I ask, do you expect to conquer Ame- 
rica 1 If you could not effect it in the summer, when our army 
was less than yours, nor in the winter, when we had none, how 
are you to do it 1 In point of generalship you have been outwit- 
ted, and in point of fortitude outdone ; your advantages turn out 
to your loss, and show us that it is in our power to ruin you by 
gifts : like a game of drafts, we can move out of one square to 
let you come in, in order that we may afterwards take two or 



92 THE CRISIS. 

three for one ; and as we can always keep a double corner for 
ourselves, we can always prevent a total defeat. You cannot be 
so insensible, as not to see that we have two to one the advan- 
tage of you, because we conquer by a drawn game, and you lose 
by it. Burgoyne might have taught your lordship this know- 
ledge ; he has been long a student in the doctrine of chances. 

I have no other idea of conquering countries than by subduing 
the armies which defend them : have you done this, or can you 
do it 1 If you have not, it would be civil in you to let your pro- 
clamations alone for the present ; otherwise," you will ruin more 
tories by your grace and favor, than you will whigs by your arms. 

Were you to obtain possession of this city, you would not 
know what to do with it more than to plunder it. To hold it in the 
manner you hold New-York, would be an additional dead weight 
upon your hands : and if a general conquest is your object, you 
had better be without the city than with it. When you have de- 
feated all our armies, the cities will fall into your hands of them 
selves ; but to creep into them in the manner you got into Prince- 
ton, Trenton, &c. is like robbing an orchard in the night before 
the fruit be ripe, and running away in the morning. Your expe- 
riment in the Jerseys is sufficient to teach you that you have 
something more to do than barely to get into other people's 
houses ; and your new converts, to whom you promised all man 
ner of protection, and seduced into new guilt by pardoning them 
from their former virtues, must begin to have a very contemptible 
opinion both of your power and your policy. Your authority 
in the Jerseys is now reduced to the small circle which your 
army occupies, and your proclamation is no where else seen un- 
less it be to be laughed at. The mighty subduers of the conti- 
nent have retreated into a nut-shell, and the proud forgivers of 
our sins are fled from those they came to pardon ; and all this at 
a time when they were despatching vessel after vessel to England 
with the great news of every day. In short, you have managed 
your Jersey expedition so very dexterously, that the dead onlv 
are conquerors, because none will dispute the ground with them. 

In all the wars which you have formerly been concerned in, 
you had only armies to contend with ; in this case you have both 
an army and a country to combat with. In former wars, the 
countries followed the fate of their capitals ; Canada fell with 
Quebec, and Minorca with Port Mahon or St. Phillips ; by sub- 



THE CRISIS. 93 

duing those, the conquerors opened a way into, and became mas- 
ters of the. country : here it is otherwise ; if you get possession 
of a city here, you are obliged to shut yourselves up in it, and 
can make no other use of it, than to spend your country's money 
in. This is all the advantage you have drawn from New-York ; 
and you would draw less from Philadelphia, because it requires 
more force to keep it, and is much further from the sea. A 
pretty figure you and the tories would cut in this city, with a river 
full of ice, and a town full of fire ; for the immediate consequence 
of your getting here would be, that you would be cannonaded out 
again, and the tories be obliged to make good the damage ; and 
this sooner or later will be the fate of New-York. 

I wish to see the city saved, not so much from military as from 
natural motives. 'Tis the hiding place of women and children, 
and lord Howe's proper business is with our armies. When I 
put all the circumstances together which ought to be taken, I 
!iugh at your notion of conquering America. Because you lived 
in a little country, where an army might run over the whole in a 
few days, and where a single company of soldiers might put a 
multitude to the route, you expected to find it the same here. It 
is plain that you brought over with you all the narrow notions 
you were bred up with, and imagined that a proclamation in the 
king's name was to do great things ; but- Englishmen always 
travel for knowledge, and your lordship, I hope, will return, if 
you return at all, much Aviser than you came. 

We may be surprised by events we did not expect, and in that 
interval of recollection you may gain some temporary advantage : 
such was the case a few weeks ago, but we soon ripen again into 
reason, collect our strength, and while you are preparing for a 
triumph, we come upon you with a defeat. Such it has been, 
and such it would be were you to try it a hundred times over. 
Were you to garrison the places you might march over, in order 
to secure their subjection, (for remember you can do it by no 
other means,) your army would be like a stream of water running 
to nothing. By the time you extended from New-York to Vir- 
ginia, you would be reduced to a string of drops not capable of 
hanging together ; while we, by retreating from state to state, 
like a river turning back upon itself, would acquire strength in 
the same proportion as you lost it, and in the end be capable, of 
overwhelming vou. The country, in the mean time, would suf- 



94 THE CRISIS. 

fer, but it is a day of suffering, and we ought to expect it. What 
we contend for is worthy the affliction we may go through. If 
we get but bread to eat, and any kind of raiment to put on, we 
ought not only to be contented, but thankful. More than that we 
ought not to look for, and less than that heaven has not yet suf- 
fered us to want. He that would sell his birth right for a little 
salt, is as worthless as he who sold it for porridge without salt. 
And he that would part with it for a gay coat, or a plain coat, 
ought for ever to be a slave in buff. What are salt, sugar and 
finery, to the inestimable blessings of " Liberty and safety !" 
Or what are the inconveniences of a few months to the tributary 
bondage of ages 1 The meanest peasant in America, blest with 
these sentiments, is a happy man compared with a New- York 
tory ; he can eat his morsel without repining, and when he has 
done, can sweeten it with a repast of wholesome air ; he can take 
his child by the hand and bless it, without feeling the conscious 
shame of neglecting a parent's duty. 

In publishing these remarks I have several objects in view. 
On your part they are to expose the folly of your pretended 
authority as a commissioner ; the wickedness of your cause in 
general ; and the impossibility of your conquering us at any rate. 
On the part of the public, my intention is, to show them their true 
and solid interest ; to encourage them to their own good, to re- 
move the fears and falsities which bad men have spread, and 
weak men have encouraged ; and to excite in all men a love for 
union, and a cheerfulness for duty. 

I shall submit one more case to you respecting your conquest 
of this country, and then proceed to new observations. 

Suppose our armies in every part of this continent were imme- 
diately to disperse, every man to his home, or where else he 
might be safe, and engage to re-assemble again on a certain fu- 
ture day ; it is clear that you would then have no army to con- 
tend with, yet you would be as much at a loss in that case as you 
are now ; you would be afraid to send your troops in parties over 
the continent, either to disarm or prevent us from assembling, 
lest they should not return ; and while you kept them together, 
having no army of ours to dispute with, you could not call it a 
conquest ; you might furnish out a pompous page in the London 
Gazette or a New- York paper, but when we returned at the an- 



THE CRISIS. 95 

pointed time, you would have the same work to do that you had 
at first. 

It has been the folly of Britain to suppose herself more pow- 
erful than she really is, and by that means has arrogated to her- 
self a rank in the world she is not entitled to : for more than this 
century past she has not been able to cany on a war without 
foreign assistance. In Marlborough's campaigns, and from that 
day to this, the number of German troops and officers assisting 
her have been about equal with her own ; ten thousand Hessians 
were sent to England last war to protect her from a French in- 
vasion ; and she would have cut but a poor figure in her Cana- 
dian and West-Indian expeditions, had not America been lavish 
both of her money and men to help her along. The only instance 
in which she was engaged singly, that I can recollect, was against 
the rebellion in Scotland, in the years 1745 and 1746, and in 
that, out of three battles, she was twice beaten, till by thus re- 
ducing their numbers, (as we shall yours,) and taking a supply 
ship that was coming to Scotland with clothes, arms and money, 
(as we have often done,) she was at last enabled to defeat them. 
England was never famous by land ; her officers have generally 
been suspected of cowardice, have more of the air of a dancing- 
master than a soldier, and by the samples which we have taken 
prisoners, we give the preference to ourselves. Her strength, of 
late, has lain in her extravagance ; but as her finances and credit 
are now low, her sinews in that line begin to fail fast. As a na- 
tion she is the poorest in Europe ; for were the whole kingdom, 
and all that is in it, to be put up for sale like the estate of a bank- 
rupt, it would not fetch as much as she owes ; yet this thought- 
less wretch must go to war, and with the avowed design, too, of 
making us beasts of burden, to support her in riot and debauchery, 
and to assist her afterwards in distressing those nations who are 
now our best friends. This ingratitude may suit a tory, or the 
unchristian peevishness of a fallen Quaker, but none else. 

'Tis the unhappy temper of the English to be pleased with any 
war, right or wrong, be it but successful ; but they soon grow 
discontented with ill fortune, and it is an even chance that they are 
as clamorous for peace next summer, as the king and his minis- 
ters were for war last winter. In this natural view of things, your 
lordship stands in a very critical situation : your whole character 



96 THE CRISIS. 

is now staked upon your laurels ; if they wither, you wither with 
them ; if they flourish, you cannot live long to look at them; and 
at any rate, the black account hereafter is not far off. What 
lately appeared to us misfortunes, were only blessings in disguise ; 
and the seeming advantages on your side have turned out to our 
profit. Even our loss of this city, as far as we can see, might be 
a principal gain to us : the more surface you spread over, the 
thinner you will be, and the easier wiped away ; and our conso- 
lation under that apparent disaster would be, that the estates of 
the tories would become securities for the repairs. In short, 
there is no old ground we can fail upon, but some new foun- 
dation rises again to support us. " We have put, sir, our hands 
to the plough, and cursed be he that looketh back." 

Your king, in his speech to parliament last spring, declared, 
" That he had no doubt but the great force they had enabled him 
to send to America, would effectually reduce the rebellious colo- 
nies." It has not, neither can it ; but it has done just enough to 
lay the foundation of its own next year's ruin. You are sensible 
that you left England in a divided, distracted state of politics, 
and, by the command you had here, you became a principal prop 
in the court party ; their fortunes rest on yours ; by a single ex- 
press you can fix their value with the public, and the degree to 
which their spirits shall rise or fail ; they are in your hands as 
stock, and you have the secret of the alley with you. Thus 
situated and connected, you become the unintentional mechani- 
cal instrument of your own and their overthrow. The king and 
his ministers put conquest out of doubt, and the credit of both 
depended on the proof. To support them in the interim, it was 
necessary that you should make the most of every thing, and we 
can tell by Hugh Gaine's New- York paper what the complexion 
of the London Gazette is. With such a list of victories the na- 
tion cannot expect you will ask new supplies ; and to confess 
your want of them, would give the lie to your triumphs, and im- 
peach the king and his ministers of treasonable deception. If 
you make the necessary demand at home, your party sinks ; if 
you make it not, you sink yourself; to ask it now is too late, and 
to ask it before was too soon, and unless it arrive quickly will be 
of no use. In short, the part you have to act, cannot be acted ; 
and I am fully persuaded that all you have to trust to is, to do tho 



THE CRISIS. 97 

best you can with what force you have got, or little more. 
Though we have greatly exceeded you in point of generalship 
and bravery of men, yet, as a people, we have not entered into 
the full soul of enterprise ; for I, who know England and the dis- 
position of the people well, am confident, that it is easier for us 
to effect a revolution there, than you a conquest here ; a few 
thousand men landed in England with the declared design of de- 
posing the present king, bringing his ministers to trial, and setting 
up the Duke of Gloucester in his stead, would assuredly carry 
their point, while you were grovelling here ignorant of the mat- 
ter. As I send all my papers to England, this, like Common 
Sense, will find its way there ; and though it may put one party 
on their guard, it will inform the other, and the nation in general, 
of our design to help them. 

Thus far, sir, I have endeavored to give you a picture of pre- 
sent affairs : you may draw from it what conclusions you please. 
I wish as well to the true prosperity of England as you can, but I 
consider independence as America's natural right and interest, 
and never could see any real disservice it would be to Britain. If 
an English merchant receives an order, and is paid for it, it sig- 
nifies nothing to him who governs the country. This is my creed 
of politics. If I have any where expressed myself over-warmly, 
'tis from a fixed, immoveable hatred I have, and ever had, to cruel 
men and cruel measures. I have likewise an aversion to monar- 
chy, as being too debasing to 'the dignity of man ; but I neve* 
troubled others with my notions till very lately, nor ever pub- 
lished a syllable in England in my life. What I write is pure 
nature, and my pen and my soul have ever gone together. My 
writings I have always given away, reserving only the expense of 
printing and paper, and sometimes not even that. I never courted 
either fame or interest, and my manner of life, to those who know 
it, will justify what I say. My study is to be useful, and if your 
lordship loves mankind as well as I do, you would, seeing you 
cannot conquer us, cast about and lend your hand towards ac- 
complishing a peace. Our independence, with God's blessing, 
we will maintain against all the world ; but as we wish to avoid 
evil ourselves, we wish not to inflict it on others. I am never 
over-inquisitive into the secrets of the cabinet, but I have some 
notion, that if you neglect the present opportunity, that it will not 
vol u 13 



98 THE CRISIS. 

be in our power to make a separate peace with you afterwards ; 
for whatever treaties or alliances we form, we shall most faith- 
fully abide by ; wherefore you may be deceived if you think you 
can make it with us at any time. A lasting independent peace 
is my wish, end and aim ; and to accomplish that, " I pray God 
the Americans may never be defeated, and I trust while they have 
good officers, and are well commanded, 1 * and willing to be com- 
manded, " that they never will be." 

COMMON SENSE. 
Philadelphia, Jan. 13, 1777. 



THE CRISIS. 



►ejoo— 



170. III. 



In the progress of politics, as in the common occurrences of 
life, we are not only apt to forget the ground we have travelled 
over, but frequently neglect to gather up experience as we go. 
We expend, if I may so say, the knowledge of every day on the 
circumstances that produce it, and journey on in search of new 
matter and new refinements : but as it is pleasant and sometimes 
useful to look back, even to the first periods of infancy, and trace 
the turns and windings through which we have passed, so we may 
likewise derive many advantages by halting a while in our politi- 
cal career, and taking a review of the wondrous complicated la- 
byrinth of little more than yesterday. 

Truly may we say, that never did men grow old in so short a 
time ! We have crowded the business of an age into the compass 
of a few months, and have been driven through such a rapid suc- 
cession of things, that for the want of leisure to think, we una- 
voidably wasted knowledge as we came, and have left nearly as 
much behind us as we brought with us : but the road is yet rich 
with the fragments, and, before we fully lose sight of them, will 
repay us for the trouble of stopping to pick them up. 

Were a man to be totally deprived of memory, he would be in- 
capable of forming any just opinion; every thing about him would 
seem a chaos ; he would have even his own history to ask from 
every one ; and by not knowing how the world went in his ab- 
sence, he would be at a loss to know how it ought to go on when 
he recovered, or rather, returned to it again. In like manner, 
though in a less degree, a too great inattention to past occurrences 
retards and bewilders our judgment in every thing ; while, on the 



100 THE CRISIS. 

contrary, by comparing what is past with what is present, we fre- 
quently hit on the true character of both, and become wise with 
very little trouble* It is a kind of counter-march, by which we 
get into the rear of time, and mark the movements and meaning 
of things as we make our return. There are certain circum- 
stances, which, at the time of their happening, are a kind of riddles, 
and as every riddle is to be followed by its answer, so those kind 
of circumstances will be followed by their events, and those events 
are always the true solution. A considerable space of time may 
lapse between, and unless we continue our observations from the 
one to the other, the harmony of them will pass away unnoticed : 
but the misfortune is, that partly from the pressing necessity of 
some instant things, and partly from the impatience of our own 
tempers, we are frequently in such a hurry to make out the mean- 
ing of every thing as fast as it happens, that we thereby never 
truly understand it ; and not only start new difficulties to our- 
selves by so doing, but, as it were, embarrass Providence in her 
good designs. 

I have been civil in stating this fault on a large scale, for, as it 
now stands, it does not appear to be levelled against any particu- 
lar set of men ; but were it to be refined a little further, it might 
afterwards be applied to the tories with a degree of striking pro- 
priety : those men have been remarkable for drawing sudden con- 
clusions from single facts. The least apparent mishap on our 
side, or the least seeming advantage on the part of the enemy, 
have determined with them the fate of a whole campaign. By 
this hasty judgment they have converted a retreat into a defeat ; 
mistook generalship for error ; while every little advantage pur- 
posely given the enemy, either to weaken their strength by divi- 
ding it, embarrass their councils by multiplying their objects, or to 
secure a greater post by the surrender of a less, has been instantly 
magnified into a conquest. Thus, by quartering ill policy upon 
ill principles, they have frequently promoted the cause they de- 
signed to injure, and injured that which they intended to promote. 
It is probable the campaign may open before this number comes 
from the press. The enemy have long lain idle, and amused 
themselves with carrying on the war by proclamations only. 
While they continue their delay our strength increases, and were 
they to move to action now, it is a circumstantial proof that they 
have no reinforcement coming ; wherefore, in either case, the 



Ttt£ CRISIS. 101 

comparative advantage will be ours. Like a wounded, disabled 
whale, they want only time and room to die in ; and though in 
the agony of their exit, it may be unsafe to live within the flapping 
of their tail, yet every hour shortens their date, and lessens their 
power of mischief. If any thing happens while this number is in 
the press, it will afford me a subject for the last pages of it. At 
present I am tired of waiting ; and as neither the enemy, nor the 
state of politics have yet produced any thing new, I am thereby 
left in the field of general matter, undirected by any striking or 
particular object. This Crisis, therefore, will be made up rather 
of variety than novelty, and consist more of things useful than 
things wonderful. 

The success of the cause, the union of the people, and the 
means of supporting and securing both, are points which cannot 
be too much attended to. He who doubts of the former is a de- 
sponding coward, and he who wilfully disturbs the latter is a trai- 
tor. Their characters are easily fixed, and under these short de- 
scriptions I leave them for the present. 

One of the greatest degrees of sentimental union which Ame- 
rica ever knew, was in denying the right of the British parliament 
" to bind the colonies in all cases whatsoever." The declaration 
is, in its form, an almighty one, and is the loftiest stretch of arbi- 
trary power that ever one set of men, or one country claimed 
over another. Taxation was nothing more than the putting the de- 
clared right into practice ; and this failing, recourse was had to 
arms, as a means to establish both the right and the practice, or 
to answer a worse purpose, which will be mentioned in the course 
of this number. And in order to repay themselves the expense 
of an army, and to profit by their own injustice, the colonies were, 
by another law, declared to be in a state of actual rebellion, and 
of consequence all property therein would fall to the conquerors. 

The colonies, on their part, first, denied the right ; secondly, 
they suspended the use of taxable articles, and petitioned against 
the practice of taxation : and these failing, they, thirdly, defended 
their property by force, as soon as it was forcibly invaded, and 
in answer to the declaration of rebellion and non-protection, pub- 
lished their declaration of independence and right of self-pro- 
tection. 

These, in a few words, are the different stages of the quarrel ; 
and the parts are so intimately and necessarily connected with 



102 THE CRISIS. 

each other as to admit of no separation. A person, to use a 
trite phrase, must be a whig or a tory in the lump. His feelings, 
as a man, may be wounded ; his charity, as a Christian, may be 
moved ; but his political principles must go through all the cases 
on one side or the other. He cannot be a whig in this stage, 
and a tory in that. If he says he is against the united inde- 
pendence of the continent* he is to all intents and purposes against 
her in all the rest ; because this last comprehends the whole. 
And he may just as well say* that Britain was right in declaring 
us rebels ; right in taxing us ; and right in declaring her " right 
to bind the colonies in all cases whatsoever." It signifies nothing 
what neutral ground, of his own creating, he may skulk upon for 
shelter, for the quarrel in no stage of it hath afforded any such 
ground ; and either we or Britain are absolutely right or abso- 
lutely wrong through the whole. 

Britain, like a gamester nearly ruined, hath now put all her 
losses into one bet, and is playing a desperate game for the total. 
If she wins it, she wins from me my life ; she wins the continent 
as the forfeited property of rebels ; the right of taxing those that 
are left as reduced subjects ; and the power of binding them 
slaves : and the single die which determines this unparalleled 
event is, whether we support our independence or she overturn 
it. This is coming to the point at once. Here is the touch- 
stone to try men by. He that is not a supporter of the indepen- 
dent states of America, in the same degree that his religious and 
political principles ivould suffer him to support the government of 
any other country, of which he called himself a subject, is, in the 
American sense of the word, a tory ; and the instant that he en- 
deavors to bring his toryism into practice, he becomes a traitor. 
The first can only be detected by a general test, and the law hath 
already provided for the latter. 

It is unnatural and impolitic to admit men who would root up 
our independence to have any share in our legislation, either as 
electors or representatives ; because the support of our indepen- 
dence rests, in a great measure, on the vigor and purity of our 
public bodies. Would Britain, even in time of peace, much less 
in war, suffer an election to be carried by men who professed 
themselves to be not her subjects, or allow such to sit in parlia 
menU Certainly not. 



THE CRISIS. 103 

But there are a certain species of tories with whom conscience 
or principle hath nothing to do, and who are so from avarice 
only. Some of the first fortunes on the continent, on the part of 
the whigs, are staked on the issue of our present measures. And 
shall disaffection only be rewarded with security? Can any 
thing be a greater inducement to a miserly man, than the hope of 
making his mammon safe 1 And though the scheme be fraught 
with every character of folly, yet, so long as he supposes, that by 
doing nothing materially criminal against America on one part, 
and by expressing his private disapprobation against indepen- 
dence, as palliative with the enemy on the other part, he stands 
in a safe line between both ; while, I say, this ground be suf- 
fered to remain, craft, and the spirit of avarice, will point it out, 
and men will not be wanting to fill up this most contemptible of 
all characters. 

These men, ashamed to own the sordid cause from whence 
their disaffection springs, add thereby meanness to meanness, by 
endeavoring to shelter themselves under the mask of hypocrisy ; 
that is, they had rather be thought to be tories from some kind of 
principle, than tories by having no principle at all. But till such 
time as they can show some real reason, natural, political, or 
conscientious, on which their objections to independence are 
founded, we are not obliged to give them credit for being tories 
of the first stamp* but must set them down as tories of the last. 

In the second number of the Crisis, I endeavored to show the 
impossibility of the enemy's making any conquest of America, 
that nothing was wanting on our part but patience and perseve- 
rance, and that, with these virtues, our success, as far as human 
speculation could discern, seemed as certain as fate. But as 
there are many among us, who, influenced by others, have regu- 
larly gone back from the principles they once held, in proportion 
as we have gone forward ; and as it is the unfortunate lot of many 
a good man to live within the neighborhood of disaffected ones ; I 
shall, therefore, for the sake of confirming the one and recovering 
the other, endeavor, in the space of a page or two, to go over some 
of the leading principles in support of independence. It is a 
much pleasanter task to prevent vice than to punish it, and, how- 
ever our tempers may be gratified by resentment, or our national 
expenses eased by forfeited estates, harmony and friendship is, 
nevertheless, the happiest condition a country can be blest with, 



104 THE CRISIS. 

The principal arguments in support of independence may be 
comprehended under the four following heads. 

1st, The natural right of the continent to independence. 

2d, Her interest in being independent. 

3d, The necessity, — and 

4th, The moral advantages arising therefrom. 

1st, The natural right of the continent to independence, is a 
point which never yet was called in question. It will not even 
admit of a debate. To deny such a right, would be a kind 01 
atheism against nature : and the best answer to such an objection 
would be, " The fool hath said in his heart there is no God." 

2d, The interest of the continent in being independent is a 
point as clearly right as the former. America, by her own inter- 
nal industry, and unknown to all the powers of Europe, was, at 
the beginning of the dispute, arrived at a pitch of greatness, trade 
and population, beyond which it was the interest of Britain not tc 
suffer her to pass, lest she should grow too powerful to be kept 
subordinate. She began to view this country with the same un- 
easy malicious eye, with which a covetous guardian would view 
his ward, whose estate he had been enriching himself by for 
twenty years, and saw him just arriving at manhood. And Ame- 
rica owes no more to Britain for her present maturity, than the 
ward would to the guardian for being twenty-one years of age. 
That America hath flourished at the time she was under the go- 
vernment of Britain, is true ; but there is every natural reason to 
believe, that had she been an independent country from the first 
settlement thereof, uncontrolled by any foreign power, free to 
make her own laws, regulate and encourage her own commerce, 
she had by this time been of much greater worth than now. The 
case is simply this ;,the first settlers in the different colonies were 
left to shift for themselves, unnoticed and unsupported by any 
European government : but as the tyranny and persecution of the 
old world daily drove numbers to the new, and as, by the favor of 
heaven on their industry and perseverance,, they grew into impor- 
tance, so, in a like degree, they became an object of profit to the 
greedy eyes of Europe. It was impossible, in this state of in- 
fancy, however thriving and promising, that they could resist the 
power of any armed invader that should seek to bring them under 
his authority. In this situation, Britain thought it worth her 
while to claim them, and the continent received and acknowledged 



THE CRISIS. 105 

the claimer. It was, in reality, of no very great importance who 
was her master, seeing, that from the force and ambition of the 
different powers of Europe, she must, till she acquired strength 
enough to assert her own right, acknowledge some one. As 
well, perhaps, Britain as another ; and it might have been as well 
to have been under the states of Holland as any. The same 
hopes of engrossing and profiting by her trade, by not oppressing 
it too much, would have operated alike with any master, and pro- 
duced to the colonies the same effects. The clamor of protec- 
tion, likewise, was all a farce ; because, in order to make that 
protection necessary, she must first, by her own quarrels, create 
us enemies. Hard times indeed ! 

To know whether it be the interest of the continent to be inde- 
pendent, we need only ask this easy, simple question : Is it the 
interest of a man to be a boy all his life ? The answer to one 
will be the answer to both. America hath been one continued 
scene of legislative contention from the first king's representative 
to the last ; and this was unavoidably founded in the natural op- 
position of interest between the old country and the new. A 
governor sent from England, or receiving his authority therefrom, 
ought never to have been considered in any other light than that 
of a genteel commissioned spy, whose private business was infor- 
mation, and his public business a kind of civilized oppression. 
In the first of these characters he was to watch the tempers, sen- 
timents and disposition of the people, the growth of trade, and the 
increase of private fortunes ; and, in the latter, to suppress all 
such acts of the assemblies, however beneficial to the people, 
which did not directly or indirectly throw some increase of power 
or profit into the hands of those that sent him. 

America, till now, could never be called a free country, be- 
cause her legislation depended on the will of a man three thou- 
sand miles distant, whose interest was in opposition to ours, and 
who, by a single " no," could forbid what law he pleased. 

The freedom of trade, likewise, is, to a trading country, an 
article of such importance, that the principal source of wealth 
depends upon it ; and it is impossible that any country can 
flourish, as it otherwise might do, whose commerce is engrossed, 
cramped and fettered by the laws and mandates of another — yet 
these evils, and more than I can here enumerate, the continent 
has suffered by being under the government of England. By an 

vol i. 14 



106 THE CRISIS. 

independence we clear the whole at once — put an end to thw 
business of unanswered petitions and fruitless remonstrances — 
exchange Britain for Europe — shake hands with the world — live 
at peace with the world — and trade to any market where we can 
buy and sell. 

3d, The necessity, likewise, of being independent, even before 
it was declared, became so evident and important, that the conti- 
nent ran the risk of being ruined every day that she delayed «t. 
There was reason to believe that Britain would endeavor to make 
an European matter of it, and, rather than lose the whole, would 
dismember it, like Poland, and dispose of her several claims to 
the highest bidder. Genoa, failing in her attempts to reduce 
Corsica, made a sale of it to the French, and such traffics have 
been common in the old world. We had at that time no ambas- 
sador in any part of Europe, to counteract her negociations, and 
by that means she had the range of every foreign court uncontra- 
dicted on our part. We even knew nothing of the treaty for the 
Hessians till it was concluded, and the troops ready to embark. 
Had we been independent before, we had probably prevented her 
obtaining them. We had no credit abroad, because of our rebel- 
lious dependancy. Our ships could claim no protection in 
foreign ports, because we afforded them no justifiable reason for 
granting it to us. The calling ourselves subjects, and at the 
same time fighting against the power which we acknowledged, 
was a dangerous precedent to all Europe. If the grievances jus- 
tified the taking up arms, they justified our separation ; if they 
did not justify our separation, neither could they justify our taking 
up arms. All Europe was interested in reducing us as rebels, 
and all Europe (or the greatest part at least) is interested in sup- 
porting us as independent states. At home our condition was 
Btill worse ; our currency had no foundation, and the fall of it 
would have ruined whig and tory alike. We had no other law 
than a kind of moderated passion; no other civil power than an 
honest mob ; and no other protection than the temporary attach- 
ment of one man to another. Had independence been delayed a 
few months longer, this continent would have been plunged into 
irrecoverable confusion : some violent for it, some against it, till, 
in the general cabal, the rich would have been ruined, and the 
poor destroyed. It is to independence that every tory owes the 
present safety which he lives in ; for by that, and that only, wa 



•p 



THE CRISIS. 107 

emerged from a state of dangerous suspense, and became a regu- 
lar people. 

The necessity, likewise, of being independent, had there been 
no rupture between Britain and America, would, in a little time, 
have brought one on. The increasing importance of commerce, 
the weight and perplexity of legislation, and the entangled state 
of European politics, would daily have shown to the continent the 
impossibility of continuing subordinate ; for, after the coolest re- 
flections on the matter, this mast be allowed, that Britain was too 
jealous of America to govern it justly ; too ignorant of it to 
govern it well ; and too far distant from it to govern it at all. 

4th. But what weigh most with all men of serious reflection 
are, the moral advantages arising from independence : war and 
desolation have become the trade of the old world ; and America 
neither could, nor can be under the government of Britain with- 
out becoming a sharer of her guilt, and a partner in all the dismal 
commerce of death. The spirit of duelling, extended on a na- 
tional scale, is a proper character for European wars. They 
have seldom any other motive than pride, or any other object 
than fame. The conquerors and the conquered are generally 
ruined alike, and the chief difference at last is, that the one 
marches home with his honors, and the other without them, 'Tis 
the natural temper of the English to fight for a feather, if they 
suppose that feather to be an affront ; and America, without the 
right of asking why, must have abetted in every quarrel, and 
abided by its fate. It is a shocking situation to live in, that one 
country must be brought into all the wars of another, whether the 
measure be right or wrong, or whether she will or not ; yet this, 
in the fullest extent, was, and ever would be, the unavoidable 
consequence of the connexion. Surely the Quakers forgot their 
own principles, when, in their late Testimony, they called this 
connexion, with these military and miserable appendages hanging 
to it — " the happy constitution." 

Britain, for centuries past, has been nearly fifty years out of 
every hundred at Avar with some power or other. It certainly 
ought to be a conscientious as well as political consideration 
with America, not to dip her hands in the bloody work of Europe. 
Our situation affords us a retreat from their cabals, and the pre- 
sent happy union of the states bids fair for extirpating the future 
use of arms from one quarter of the world 5 yet such have been 



10S THE CRISIS 

the irreligious politics of the present leaders of the Quakers, that, 
for the sake of they scarce know what, they would cut off every 
hope of such a blessing by tying this continent to Britain, like 
Hector to the chariot wheel of Achilles, to be dragged through 
all the miseries of endless European wars. 

The connexion, viewed from this ground, is distressing to 
every man who has the feelings of humanity. By having Britain 
for our master, we became enemies to the greatest part of Europe, 
and they to us : and the consequence was war inevitable. By 
being our own masters, independent of any foreign one, we have 
Europe for our friends, and the prospect of an endless peace 
among ourselves. Those who were advocates for the British 
government over these colonies, were obliged to limit both their 
arguments, and their ideas to the period of an European peace 
only : the moment Britain became plunged in war, every sup- 
posed convenience to us vanished, and all we could hope for was 
not to be ruined. Could this be a desirable condition for a young 
country to be in ? 

Had the French pursued their fortune immediately after the 
defeat of Braddock last war, this city and province had then ex- 
perienced the woful calamities of being a British subject. A 
scene of the same kind might happen again ; for America, con- 
sidered as a subject to the crown of Britain, would ever have 
been the seat of war, and the bone of contention between the two 
powers. 

On the whole, if the future expulsion of arms from one quarter 
of the world would be a desirable object to a peaceable man ; — 
if the freedom of trade to every part of it can engage the attention 
of a man of business ; — if the support or fall of millions of cur- 
rency can affect our interests; — if the entire possession of estates, 
by cutting off the lordly claims of Britain over the soil, deserves 
the regard of landed property ; and if the right of making our 
own laws, uncontrolled by royal or ministerial spies or mandates, 
be worthy our care as freemen ; — then are all men interested in 
the support of independence ; and may he that supports it not, 
be driven from the blessing, and live unpitied beneath the servile 
sufferings of scandalous subjection ! 

We have been amused with the tales of ancient wonders ; we 
have read, and wept over the histories of other nations ; ap- 
plauded, censured, or pitied, as their cases affected us. The 



THE CRISIS. 109 

fortitude and patience of the sufferers — the justness of their 
cause — the weight of their oppressions and oppressors — the ob- 
ject to be saved or lost — with all the consequences of a defeat or 
a conquest — have, in the hour of sympathy, bewitched our hearts, 
and chained it to their fate : but where is the power that ever 
made war upon petitioners 1 Or where is the war on which a 
world was staked till now 1 

We may not, perhaps, be wise enough to make all the advan- 
tages we ought of our independence ; but they are, nevertheless, 
marked and presented to us with every character of great and 
good, and worthy the hand of him who sent them. I look through 
the present trouble to a time of tranquillity, when we shall have 
it in our power to set an example of peace to all the world. Were 
the Quakers really impressed and influenced by the quiet princi- 
ples they profess to hold, they would, however they might disap- 
prove the means, be the first of all men to approve of indepen- 
dence, because, by separating ourselves from the cities of Sodom 
and Gomorrah, it affords an opportunity never given to man be- 
fore, of carrying their favorite principle of peace into general 
practice, by establishing governments that shall hereafter exist 
without wars. ! ye fallen, cringing, priest and Pemberton- 
ridden people ! What more can we say of ye than that a reli- 
gious Quaker is a valuable character, and a political Quaker a 
real Jesuit. 

Having thus gone over some of the principal points in support 
of independence, I must now request the reader to return back 
with me to the period when it first began to be a public doctrine, 
and to examine the progress it has made among the various 
classes of men. The era I mean to begin at, is the breaking out 
of hostilities, April 19th, 1775. Until this event happened, the 
continent seemed to view the dispute as a kind of law-suit for a 
matter of right, litigating between the old country and the new ; 
and she felt the same kind and degree of horror, as if she had 
seen an oppressive plaintiff, at the head of a band of ruffians, 
enter the court, while the cause was before it, and put the judge, 
the jury, the defendant and his counsel, to the sword. Perhaps 
a more heart-felt convulsion never reached a country with the 
same degree of power and rapidity before, and never may again. 
Pity for the sufferers, mixed with indignation at the violence, and 
heightened with apprehensions of undergoing the same fate 



110 THE CRISIS. 

made the affair of Lexington the affair of the continent. Every 
part of it felt the shock, and all vibrated together. A general 
promotion of sentiment took place : those who had drank deeply 
into whiggish principles, that is, the right and necessity not only 
of opposing, but wholly setting aside the power of the crown as 
soon as it became practically dangerous (for in theory it was al- 
ways so) stepped into the first stage of independence ; while ano- 
ther class of whigs, equally sound in principle, but not so san- 
guine in enterprise, attached themselves the stronger to the 
cause, and fell close in with the rear of the former; their partition 
was a mere point. Numbers of the moderate men, whose chief 
fault, at that timet arose from their entertaining a better opinion 
of Britain than she deserved, convinced now of their mistake, 
gave her up, and publicly declared themselves good whigs 
While the tories, seeing it was no longer a laughing matter, either 
sunk into silent obscurity, or contented themselves with coming 
forth and abusing general Gage : not a single advocate appeared 
to justify the action of that day; it seemed to appear to every 
one with the same magnitude, struck every one with the same 
force, and created in every one the same abhorrence. From this 
period we may date the growth of independence. 

If the many circumstances which happened at this memorable 
time, be taken in one view, and compared with each other, they 
will justify a conclusion which seems not to have been attended 
to, I mean a fixed design in the king and ministry of driving Ame- 
rica into arms, in order that they might be furnished with a pre- 
tence for seizing the whole continent, as the immediate property 
of the crown. A noble plunder for hungry courtiers ! 

It ought to be remembered, that the first petition from the con 
gress was at this time unanswered on the part of the British 
king. That the motion, called lord North's motion, of the 20th 
of February, 1775, arrived in America the latter end of March. 
This motion was to be laid by the several governors, then in 
being, before the assembly of each province ; and the first assem- 
bly before which it was laid, was the assembly of Pennsylvania, in 
May following. This being a just state of the case, I then ask, 
why were hostilities commenced between the time of passing the 
resolve in the house of commons, of the 20th of February, and 
the time of the assemblies meeting to deliberate upon it 1 De- 
grading and infamous as that motion was, there is, nevertheless, 



THE CRISIS. Ill 

reason to believe that the king and his adherents were afraid the 
colonies would agree to it, and lest they should, took effectual 
care they should not, by provoking them with hostilities in the 
interim. They had not the least doubt at that time of conquering 
America at one blow ; and what they expected to get by a con- 
quest being infinitely greater than any thing they could hope to 
get either by taxation or accommodation, they seemed determined 
to prevent even the possibility of hearing each other, lest America 
should disappoint their greedy hopes of the whole, by listening 
even to their own terms. On the one hand they refused to hear 
the petition of the continent, and on the other hand took effectual 
care the continent should not hear them. 

That the motion of the 20th February and the orders for com 
mencing hostilities were both concerted by the same person or 
persons, and not the latter by general Gage, as was falsely imagin- 
ed at first, is evident from an extract of a letter of his to the ad- 
ministration, read among other papers in the house of commons ; 
in which he informs his masters, " That though their idea of his 
disarming certain counties was a right one, yet it required him to 
be master of the country, in order to enable him to execute it." This 
was prior to the commencement of hostilities, and consequently 
before the motion of the 20th February could be deliberated on 
by the several assemblies. 

Perhaps it may be asked, why was the motion passed, if there 
was at the same time a plan to aggravate the Americans not to lis- 
ten to it 1 Lord North assigned one reason himself, which was 
a hope of dividing them. This was publicly tempting them to 
reject it ; that if, in case the injury of arms should fail in provok- 
ing them sufficiently, the insult of such a declaration might fill it 
up. But by passing the motion and getting it afterwards rejected 
in America, it enabled them, in their wretched idea of politics, 
among other things, to hold up the colonies to foreign powers, 
with every possible mark of disobedience and rebellion* They 
had applied to those powers not to supply the continent with 
arms, ammunition, &c. and it was necessary they should incense 
them against us, by assigning on their own part some seeming 
reputable reason why. By dividing, it had a tendency to weaken 
the states, and likewise to perplex the adherents of America in 
England. But the principal scheme, and that which has marked 
their character in every part of their conduct, was a design of 



112 THE CRISIS. 

precipitating the colonies into a state which they might afterwards 
deem rebellion, and, under that pretence, put an end to all future 
complaints, petitions and remonstrances, by seizing the whole at 
once. They had ravaged one part of the globe, till it could glut 
them no longer ; their prodigality required new plunder, and 
through the East India article tea they hoped to transfer theii 
rapine from that quarter of the world to this. Every designed 
quarrel had its pretence ; and the same barbarian avarice accom- 
panied the plant to America, which ruined the country that pro- 
duced it. 

That men never turn rogues without turning fools is a maxim, 
sooner or later, universally true. The commencement of hostili- 
ties, being in the beginning of April, was, of all times the worst 
chosen: the congress were to meet the tenth of May following, 
and the distress the continent felt at this unparalleled out- 
rage gave a stability to that body, which no other circumstance 
could have done. It suppressed, too, all inferior debates, and 
bound them together by a necessitous affection, without giving 
them time to differ upon trifles. The suffering, likewise, softened 
the whole body of the people into a degree of pliability, which laid 
the principal foundation-stone of union, order and government ; 
and which, at any other time, might only have fretted and then 
faded away unnoticed and unimproved : but Providence, who 
best knows how to time her misfortunes as well as her immediate 
favors, chose this to be the time, and who dare dispute it 1 

It did not seem the disposition of the people, at this crisis, to heap 
petition upon petition, while the former remained unanswered : 
the measure, however, was carried in congress, and a second 
petition was sent ; of which I shall only remark that it was sub- 
missive even to a dangerous fault, because the prayer of it appeal- 
ed solely to, what it called the prerogative of the crown, while the 
matter in dispute was confessedly constitutional. But even this 
petition, flattering as it was, was still not so harmonious as the 
chink of cash, and consequently not sufficiently grateful to the 
tyrant and his ministry. From every circumstance it is evident, 
that it was the determination of the British court to have nothing 
to do with America but to conquer her fully and absolutely. They 
were certain of success, and the field of battle was the only place 
of treaty. I am confident there are thousands and tens of thou- 
sands in America who wonder now that they should ever have 



THE CRISIS il3 

thought otherwise ; but the sin of that day was the sin of civility, 
yet it operated against our present good in the same manner that 
a civil opinion of the devil would against our future peace. 

Independence was a doctrine scarce and rare, even towards tho 
conclusion of the year 1775 ; all our politics had been founded 
on the hope or expectation of making the matter up — a hope, 
which, though general on the side of America, had never entered 
the head or heart of the British court. Their hope was conquest 
and confiscation. Good heavens ! what volumes of thanks does 
America owe to Biitain ? What infinite obligation to the tool that 
fills, with paradoxieal vacancy, the throne ! Nothing but the 
sharpest essence of villany. compounded with the strongest dis- 
tillation of folly, could have produced a menstruum that would 
have effected a separation. The congress in 1774, administered 
an abortive medicine to independence, by prohibiting the importa- 
tion of goods, and the succeeding congress rendered the dose still 
more dangerous by continuing it. Had independence been a 
settled system with America, (as Britain has advanced,) she ought 
to have doubled her importation, and prohibited in some degree 
her exportation. And this single circumstance is sufficient to 
acquit America before any jury of nations, of having a continental 
plan of independence in view : a charge which, had it been true, 
would have been honorable, but is so grossly false, that either the 
amazing ignorance or the wilful dishonesty of the British court, is 
effectually proved by it. 

The second petition, like the first, produced no answer ; it was 
scarcely acknowledged to have been received ; the British court 
were too determined in their villainy even to act it artfully, and in 
their rage for conquest neglected the necessary subtleties for ob- 
taining it. They might have divided, distracted and played a 
thousand tricks with us, had they been as cunning as they were 
cruel. 

This last indignity gave a new spring to independence. Those 
who knew the savage obstinacy of the king, and the jobbing, gam- 
bling spirit of the court, predicted the fate of the petition, as soon 
as it was sent from America ; for the men being known, their 
measures were easily foreseen. As politicians we ought not so 
much to ground our hopes on the reasonableness of the thing 
we ask, as on the reasonableness of the person of whom we ask 

vor,. I. 15 



il4 TIIE CRISIS. 

it : who would expect discretion from a fool, candor from a tyrant, 
or justice from a villain 1 

As every prospect of accommodation seemed now to fail fast, 
men began to think seriously on the matter ; and their reason 
being thus stripped of the false hope which had long encompassed 
it, became approachable by fair debate : yet still the bulk of the 
people hesitated ; they startled at the novelty of independence, 
without once considering that our getting into arms at first was a 
more extraordinary novelty, and that all other nations had gone 
through the work of independence before us. They doubted 
likewise the ability of the continent to support it, without reflecting 
that it required the same force to obtain an accommodation by 
arms as an independence. If the one was acquirable, the other 
was the same ; because, to accomplish either, it was necessary 
that our strength should be too great for Britain to subdue ; and 
it was too unreasonable to suppose, that with the power of being 
masters, we should submit to be servants.* Their caution at 
this time was exceedingly misplaced ; for if they were able to 
defend their property and maintain their rights by arms, they, con- 
sequently, were able to defend and support their independence ; 
and in proportion as these men saw the necessity and correctness 
of the measure, they honestly and openly declared and adopted it, 
and the part that they have acted since, has done them honor and 
fully established their characters. Error in opinion has this pe- 
culiar advantage with it, that the foremost point of the contrary 
ground may at any time be reached by the sudden exertion of a 
thought ; and it frequently happens in sentimental differences, that 
some striking circumstance, or some forcible reason quickly con- 

* In this state of political suspense the pamphlet Common Sense made its 
appearance, and the success it met with does not become me to mention. Dr. 
Franklin, Mr. Samuel and John Adams, were severally spoken of as the 
supposed author. I had not, at that time, the pleasure either of personally- 
knowing or being known to the two last gentlemen. The favor of Dr. Frank- 
lin's friendship I possessed in England, and my introduction to this part of 
the world was through his patronage. I happened, when a school-boy, to 
pick up a pleasing natural history of Virginia, and my inclination from that 
day of seeing the western side of the Atlantic never left me. In October, 1775, 
Dr. Franklin proposed giving me such materials as were in his hands, 
towards completing a history of the present transactions, and seemed desirous 
of having the first volume out the next spring. I had then formed the outlines 
of Common Sense, and finished nearly the first part ; and as I supposed the 
doctor's design in getting out a history, was to open the new year with a new 
system, I expected to surprise him with a production on that subject, much 
earlier than he thought of; and without informing him what I was doing, got 
it ready for the press as fast as I conveniently could, and sent him the first 
pamphlet that was printed off. 



THE CRISIS. lift 

ceived, will effect in an instant what neither argument nor exam- 
ple could produce in an age. 

I find it impossible in the small compass I am limited to, to 
trace out the pi ogress which independence has made on the minds 
of the different classes of men, and the several reasons by which 
they were moved. With some, it was a passionate abhorrence 
against the king of EngTand and his ministry, as a set of savages 
and brutes ; and these men, governed by the agony or a wounded 
mind, were for trusting every thing to hope and heaven, and bid- 
ding defiance at once. With others, it was a growing conviction 
that the scheme of the British court was to create, ferment and 
drive on a quarrel, for the sake of confiscated plunder : and men 
of this class ripened into independence in proportion as the evi- 
dence increased. While a third class conceived it was the true 
interest of America, internally and externally, to be her own mas- 
ter, and gave their support to independence, step by step, as they 
saw her abilities to maintain it enlarge. With many, it was a 
compound of all these reasons ; while those who were too callous 
to be reached by either, remained, and still remain tories. 

The legal necessity of being independent, with several collateral 
reasons, is pointed out in an elegant masterly manner, in a 
charge to the grand jury for the district of Charleston, by the 
Hon. William Henry Drayton, chief justice of South Carolina. 
This performance, and the address of the convention of New- 
York, are pieces, in my humble opinion, of the first rank in Ame 
rica. 

The principal causes why independence has not been so uni- 
versally supported as it ought, are fear and indolence, and the 
causes why it has been opposed, are, avarice, down-right villany, 
and lust of personal power. There is not such a being in America 
as a tory from conscience ; some secret defect or other is inter- 
woven in the character of all those, be they men or women, who 
can look with patience on the brutality, luxury and debauchery 
of the British court, and the violations of their army here. A wo- 
man's virtue must sit very lightly on her who can even hint a 
favorable sentiment in their behalf. It is remarkable that the whole 
race of prostitutes in New York were tories ; and the schemes 
for supporting the tory cause in this city, for which several are 
now in jail, and one hanged, were concerted and carried on in 
common bawdy-houses, assisted by those who kept them. 



H6 THE CRISIS. 

The connexion between vice and meanness is a fit subject for 
satire, but when the satire is a fact, it cuts with the irresistible 
power of a diamond. If a Quaker, in defence of his just rights, 
his property, and the chastity of his house, takes up a musket, he 
is expelled the meeting ; but the present king of England, who 
seduced and took into keeping a sister of their society, is reve- 
renced and supported by repeated Testimonies, while the friendly 
noodle from whom she was taken (and who is now in this city) 
continues a drudge in the service of his rival, as if proud of being 
cuckolded by a creature called a king. 

Our support and success depend on such a variety of men 
and circumstances, that every one who does but wish well, 
is of some use : there are men who have a strange aversion to 
arms, yet have hearts to risk every shilling in the cause, or in sup- 
port of those who have better talents for defending it. Nature, 
in the arrangement of mankind, has fitted some for every service 
in life : were all soldiers, all would starve and go naked, and were 
none soldiers, all would be slaves. As disaffection to indepen- 
dence is the badge of a tory, so affection to it is the mark of a 
whig ; and the different services of the whigs, down from those 
who nobly contribute every thing, to those who have nothing to 
render but their wishes, tend all to the same centre, though with 
different degrees of merit and ability. The larger we make the 
circle, the more we shall harmonize, and the stronger we shall be. 
All we want to shut out is disaffection, and, that excluded, we 
must accept from each other such duties as we are best fitted to 
bestow. A narrow system of politics, like a narrow system of re- 
ligion, is calculated only to sour the temper, and be at variance 
with mankind. 

All we want to know in America is simply this, who is for in- 
dependence, and who is not 1 Those who are for it, will support 
it, and the remainder will undoubtedly see the reasonableness of 
paying the charges ; while those who oppose or seek to betray it, 
must expect the more rigid fate of the jail and the gibbet. There 
is a bastard kind of generosity, which being extended to all men, 
is as fatal to society, on one hand, as the want of true generosity is 
on the other. A lax manner of administering justice, falsely 
termed moderation, has a tendency both to dispirit public virtue, 
and promote the growth of public evils. Had the late committee 
of safety taken cognizance of the last Testimony of the Quakers 



THE CRISIS. 117 

and proceeded against such delinquents as were concerned there- 
in, they had, probably, prevented the treasonable plans which have 
been concerted since. When one villain is suffered to escape, it 
encourages another to proceed, either from a hope of escaping 
likewise, or an apprehension that we dare not punish. It has 
been a matter of general surprise, that no notice was taken of the 
incendiary publication of the Quakers, of the 20th of November 
last : a publication evidently intended to promote sedition and 
treason, and encourage the enemy, who were then within a day's 
march of this city, to proceed on and possess it. I here present 
the reader with a memorial which was laid before the board of 
safety a few days after the Testimony appeared. Not a member 
of that board, that I conversed with, but expressed the highest de- 
testation of the perverted principles and conduct of the Quaker 
junto, and a wish that the board would take the matter up ; not- 
withstanding which, it was suffered to pass away unnoticed, to the 
encouragement of new acts of treason, the general danger of the 
cause, and the disgrace of the state. 

To the honorable the Council of Safety of the State of 
Pennsylvania. 

At a meeting of a reputable number of the inhabitants of the city 
of Philadelphia, impressed with a proper sense of the justice of 
the cause which this continent is engaged in, and animated with 
a generous fervor for supporting the same, it was resolved, that 
the following be laid before the board of safety : 
" We profess liberality of sentiment to all men; with this dis- 
tinction only, that those who do not deserve it would become wise 
and seek to deserve it. We hold the pure doctrines of universal 
liberty of conscience, and conceive it our duty to endeavor to se- 
cure that sacred right to others, as well as to defend it for our- 
selves ; for we undertake not to judge of the religious rectitude of 
tenets, but leave the whole matter to Him who made us. 

" We persecute no man, neither will we abet in the persecution 
of any man for religion's sake ; our common relation to others 
being that of fellow-citizens and fellow-subjects of one single 
community ; and in this line of connexion we hold out the right 
hand of fellowship to all men. But we should conceive ourselves 
to be unworthy members of the free and independent stales oj 
America, were we unconcernedly to see or to suffer any treason- 



118 THE CRISIS. 

able wound, public or private, directly or indirectly, to be given 
against the peace and safety of the same. We inquire not into 
the rank of the offenders, nor into their religious persuasion ; we 
have no business with either, our part being only to find them out 
and exhibit them to justice. 

" A printed paper, dated the 20th of November, and signed 
* John P "ember ton,' whom we suppose to be an inhabitant of this 
city, has lately been dispersed abroad, a copy of which accompa- 
nies this. Had the framers and publishers of that paper conceiv- 
ed it their duty to exhort the youth and others of their society, to 
a patient submission under the present trying visitations, and 
humbly to wait the event of heaven towards them, they had thereiu 
shown a Christian temper, and we had been silent ; but the anger 
and political virulence with which their instructions are given, and 
the abuse with which they stigmatize all ranks of men, not think- 
ing like themselves, leave no. doubt on our minds from what spirit 
their publication proceeded : and it is disgraceful to the pure 
cause of truth, that men can dally with words of the most sacred 
import, and play them off as mechanically as if religion consisted 
only in contrivance. We know of no instance in which the Qua- 
kers have been compelled to bear arms, or to do any thing which 
might strain their conscience ; wherefore their advice, ' to with- 
stand and refuse to submit to the arbitrary instructions and ordin- 
ances of men,' appear to us a false alarm, and could only be trea- 
sonably calculated to gain favor with our enemies, when they are 
seemingly on the brink of invading this state, or, what is still 
worse, to weaken the hands of our defence, that their entrance 
into this city might be made practicable and easy. 

" We disclaim all tumult and disorder in the punishment of 
offenders ; and wish to be governed, not by temper but by reason, 
in the manner of treating them. We are sensible that our cause 
Jaas suffered by the two following errors ; first, by ill-judged lenity 
ito traitorous persons in some cases ; and, secondly, by only a 
passionate treatment of them in others. For the future we dis- 
own both, and wish to be steady in our proceedings, and serious 
in our punishments. 

" Every state in America has, by the repeated voice of its in- 
habitants, directed and authorised the continental congress to 
publish a formal declaration of independence of, and separation 
from, the oppressive king and parliament of Great Ejitain ; and 



THE CRISIS. 119 

we look on every man as an enemy, who does not in some line 
or other, give his assistance towards supporting the same ; at the 
same time we consider the offence to be heightened to a degree 
of unpardonable guilt, when such persons, under the show of reli- 
gion, endeavor, either by writing, speaking, or otherwise, to sub- 
vert, overturn, or bring reproach upon the independence of this 
continent as declared by congress. 

" The publishers of the paper signed ' John PembertonJ have 
called in a loud manner to their friends and connexions, * to with- 
stand or refuse' obedience to whatever * instructions or ordinan- 
ces' may be published, not warranted by (what they call) 4 that 
happy constitution under which they and others*long enjoyed tran- 
quillity and peace.' If this be not treason, we know not what 
may properly be called by that name. 

" To us it is a matter of surprise and astonishment, that men with 
the word 'peace, peace,' continually on their lips, should be so 
fond of living under and supporting a government, and at the same 
time calling it ' happy,' which is never better pleased than when 
at war — that hath filled India with carnage and famine, Africa 
with slavery, and tampered with Indians and negroes to cut the 
throats of the freemen of America. We conceive it a disgrace to 
this state, to harbor or wink at such palpable hypocrisy. But as 
we seek not to hurt the hair of any man's head, when we can 
make ourselves safe without, we wish such persons to restore 
peace to themselves and us, by removing themselves to some part 
of the king of Great Britain's dominions, as by that means they 
may live unmolested by us and we by them ; for our fixed opinion 
is, that those who do not deserve a place among us, ought not to 
have one. 

" We conclude with requesting the council of safety to take 
into consideration the paper signed * John Pemberton,' and if it 
shall appear to them to be of a dangerous tendency, or of a trea- 
sonable nature, that they would commit the signer, together with 
such other persons as they can discover were concerned therein, 
into custody, until such time as some mode of trial shall ascertain 
the full degree of their guilt and punishment ; in the doing of 
which, we wish their judges, whoever they may be, to disregard 
the man, hi-s connexions, interest, riches, poverty, or principles of 
religion, and to attend to the nature of his offence only." 



120 THE CRISIS. 

The most cavilling sectarian cannot accuse the foregoing with 
containing the least ingredient of persecution. The free spirit on 
which the American cause is founded, disdains to mix with such 
an impurity, and leaves it as rubbish fit only for narrow and suspi- 
cious minds to grovel in. Suspicion and persecution are weeds 
of the same dunghill, and flourish together. Had the Quakers 
minded their religion and their business, they might have lived 
through this dispute in enviable ease, and none would have mo- 
lested them. The common phrase with these people is, * Our 
'principles are peace.'' To which may be replied, and your practices 
are the reverse ; for never did the conduct of men oppose their own 
doctrine more notoriously than the present race of the Quakers. 
They have artfully changed themselves into a different sort of 
people to what they used to be, and yet have the address to persuade 
each other that they are not altered ; like antiquated virgins, they 
see not the havoc deformity has made upon them, but pleasantly 
mistaking wrinkles for dimples, conceive themselves yet lovely 
and wonder at the stupid world for not admiring them. 

Did no injury arise to the public by this apostacy of the Quakers 
from themselves, the public would have nothing to do with it ; 
but as both the design and consequences are pointed against a 
cause in which the whole community are interested, it is therefore 
no longer a subject confined to the cognizance of the meeting only, 
but comes, as a matter of criminality, before either the authority of 
the particular state in which it is acted, or of the continent 
against which it operates. Every attempt, now, to support the 
authority of the king and parliament of Great Britain over Ameri- 
ca, is treason against every state ; therefore it is impossible that 
any one can pardon or screen from punishment an offender against 

am 

But to proceed : while the infatuated tories of this and other 
states were last spring talking of commissioners, accommo- 
dation, making the matter up, and the Lord knows what stuff and 
nonsense, their good king and ministry were glutting themselves 
with the revenge of reducing America to unconditional submission, 
and solacing each other with the certainty of conquering it in one 
campaign. The following quotations are from the parliamentary 
register of the debates of the house of lords, March 5th, 1776 : 

" The Americans," says lord Talbot,* " have been obstinate, 
■* Steward of the king's household. 



THE CRISIS. J#l 

tmdutiful, and ungovernable from the very beginning, from their 
first early and infant settlements ; and I am every day more and 
more convinced that this people never will be brought back to 
their duty, and the subordinate relation they stand in to this coun- 
try, till reduced to unconditional, effectual submission ; no conces* 
sion on our part, no lenity, no endurance, will have any other 
effect but that of increasing their insolence." 

* The struggle," says lord Townsend,* " is now a struggle for 
power ; the die is cast, and the only point which now remains to 
De determined, is, in what manner the war can be most effectually 
prosecuted and speedily finished, in order to procure that uncondi- 
tional submission, which has been so ably stated by the noble earl 
with the white staff;" (meaning lord Talbot,) "and I have no 
reason to doubt that the measures now pursuing will put an end to 
the war in the course of a single campaign. Should it linger longer, 
we shall then have reason to expect that some foreign power 
will interfere, and take advantage of our domestic troubles and 
civil distractions." 

Lord Littleton. " My sentiments are pretty well known. I 
shall only observe now that lenient measures have had no other 
effect than to produce insult after insult ; that the more we con- 
ceded, the higher America rose in her demands, and the more inso- 
lent she has grown. It is for this reason that I am now for the 
most effective and decisive measures ; and am of opinion that no 
alternative is left us, but to relinquish America for ever, or finally 
determine to compel her to acknowledge the legislative authority 
of this country ; and it is the principle of an unconditional submis- 
sion I would be for maintaining." 

Can words be more expressive than these 1 Surely the tories 
will believe the tory lords ! The truth is, they do believe them 
and know as fully as any whig on the continent knows, that the 
king and ministry never had the least design of an accommodation 
with America, but an absolute, unconditional conquest. And the 
part which the tories were to act, was, by downright lying, to en- 
deavor to put the continent off its guard, and to divide and sow 
discontent in the minds of such whigs as they might gain an influ- 
ence over. In short, to keep up a distraction here, that the force 
sent from England might be able to conquer in " one campaign, 19 

* Formerly, general Townsend, at Quebec, and late lord-lieutenant of Ireland. 
VOL I. 16 



i 



122 THE CRISIS. 

They and the ministry were, by a different game, playing into each 
others hands. The cry of the tones in England was, "JVo recon- 
ciliation, no accommodation," in order to obtain the greater mili- 
tary force ; while those in America were crying nothing but " re- 
conciliation and accommodation," that the force sent might con- 
quer with the less resistance. 

But this " single campaign" is over, and America not con- 
quered. The whole work is yet to do, and the force much less to 
do it with. Their condition is both despicable and deplorable : 
out of cash — out of heart, and out of hope. A country furnished 
with arms and ammunition, as America now is, with three millions 
of inhabitants, and three thousand miles distant from the nearest 
enemy that can approach her, is able to look and laugh them in 
the face. 

Howe appears to have two objects in view, either to go up the 
North river, or come to Philadelphia. 

By going up the North river, he secures a retreat for his army 
through Canada, but the ships must return if they return at all, the 
same way they went ; as our army would be in the rear, the 
safety of their passage down is a doubtful matter. By such a 
motion he shuts himself from all supplies from Europe, but 
through Canada, and exposes his army and navy to the danger of 
perishing. The idea of his cutting off the communication be- 
tween the eastern and southern states, by means of the North 
river, is merely visionary. He cannot do it by his shipping ; be- 
cause no ship can lay long at anchor in any river within reach of 
the shore ; a single gun would drive a first rate from such a 
station. This was fully proved last October at forts Washington 
and Lee, where one gun only, on each side of the river, obliged 
two frigates to cut and be towed off in an hour's time. Neither 
can he cut it off by his army ; because the several posts they 
must occupy, would divide them almost to nothing, and expose 
them to be picked up by ours like pebbles on a river's bank ; but 
admitting that he could, where is the injury ? Because, while his 
whole force is cantoned out, as sentries over the water, they will 
be very innocently employed, and the moment they march into 
the country, the communication opens. 

The most probable object is Philadelphia, and the reasons are 
many. Howe's business is to conquer it, and in proportion as he 
finds himself unable to the task, he will employ his strength to dis- 



THE CRISIS. 123 

tress women and weak minds, in order to accomplish through their 
fears what he cannot accomplish by his own force. His coming 
or attempting to come to Philadelphia is a circumstance that 
proves his weakness : for no general that felt himself able to take 
the field and attack his antagonist, would think of bringing his 
army into a city in the summer time ; and this mere shifting the 
scene from place to place, without effecting any thing, has feeble- 
ness and cowardice on the face of it, and holds him up in a con- 
temptible light to all who can reason justly and firmly. By seve- 
ral informations from New York, it appears that their army in 
general, both officers and men, have given up the expectation of 
conquering America ; their eye now is fixed upon the spoil. They 
suppose Philadelphia to be rich with stores, and as they think to 
get more by robbing a town than by attacking an army, their 
movement towards this city is probable. We are not now con- 
tending against an army of soldiers, but against a band of thieves, 
who had rather plunder than fight, and have no other hope of con- 
quest than by cruelty. 

They expect to get a mighty booty, and strike another general 
panic, by making a sudden movement and getting possession of 
this city ; but unless they can march out as well as in, or get the 
entire command of the river, to remove off their plunder, they may 
probably be stopped with the stolen goods upon them. They 
have never yet succeeded wherever they have been opposed, but 
at fort Washington. At Charleston their defeat was effectual. 
At Ticonderoga they ran away. In every skirmish at Kings- 
bridge and the White Plains they were obliged to retreat, and 
the instant that our arms were turned upon them in the Jerseys, 
they turned likewise, and those that turned not were taken. 

The necessity of always fitting our internal police to the cir- 
cumstances of the times we live in, is something so strikingly ob- 
vious, that no sufficient objection can be made against it. The 
safety of all societies depends upon it ; and where this point is 
not attended to, the consequences will either be a general languor 
or a tumult. The encouragement and protection of the gooJ 
subjects of any state, and the suppression and punishment of bad 
ones, are the principal objects for which all authority is instituted, 
and the line in which it ought to operate. We have in this city a 
strange variety of men and characters, and the circumstances of 
the times require that they should be publicly known ; it is not tne 



124 THE CRISIS. 

number of tories that hurt us, so much as the not finding out who 
they are ; men must now take one side or the other, and abide by 
the consequences : the Quakers, trusting to their short-sighted 
sagacity, have, most unluckily for them, made their declaration in 
their last Testimony, and we ought now to take them at their 
word. They have voluntarily read themselves out of the con- 
tinental meeting, and cannot hope to be restored to it again but by 
payment and penitence. Men whose political principles are 
founded on avarice, are beyond the reach of reason, and the only 
cure of toryism of this cast, is to tax it. A substantial good 
drawn from a real evil, is of the same benefit to society, as if 
drawn from a virtue ; and where men have not public spirit 
to render themselves serviceable, it ought to be the study of 
government to draw the best use possible from their vices. When 
the governing passion of any man, or set of men, is once known, 
the method of managing them is easy ; for even misers, whom no 
public virtue can impress, would become generous, could a heavy 
tax be laid upon covetousness " 

The tories have endeavored to insure their property with the 
enemy, by forfeiting their reputation with us ; from which may be 
justly inferred, that their governing passion is avarice. Make 
them as much afraid of losing on one side as on the other, and 
you stagger their toryism ; make them more so, and you reclaim 
them ; for their principle is to worship the power which they are 
most afraid of. 

This method of considering men and things together, opens 
into a large field for speculation, and affords me an opportunity of 
offering some observations on the state of our currency, so as to 
make the support of it go hand in hand with the suppression of 
disaffection and the encouragement of public spirit. 

The thing which first presents itself in inspecting the state of 
the currency, is, that we have too much of it, and that there is a 
necessity of reducing the quantity, in order to increase the value. 
Men are daily growing poor by the very means that they take to 
get rich ; for in the same proportion that the prices of all goods 
on hand are raised, the value of all money laid by is reduced. A 
simple case will make this clear; let a man have 100/. in cash, 
and as many goods on hand as will to-day sell for 20/. but not 
content with the present market price, he raises them to 40/. and 
by so doing obliges others, in their own defence, to raise cent, per 



THE CRISIS. 125 

cent, likewise ; in this case it is evident that his hundred pounds 
laid by, is reduced fifty pounds in value ; whereas, had the market 
lowered cent, per cent, his goods would have sold but for ten, but 
his hundred pounds would have risen in value to two hundred ; 
because it would then purchase as many goods again, or support 
his family as long again as before. And, strange as it may seem, 
he is one hundred and fifty pounds the poorer for raising his goods, 
to what he would have been had he lowered them ; because the 
forty pounds which his goods sold for, is, by the general raise of 
the market cent, per cent., rendered of no more value than the ten 
pounds would be had the market fallen in the same proportion ; 
and, consequently, the whole difference of gain or loss is on the 
difference in value of the hundred pounds laid by, viz. from fifty 
to two hundred. This rage for raising goods is for several 
reasons much more the fault of the tories than the whigs ; and yet 
the tories (to their shame and confusion ought they to be told of 
it) are by far the most noisy and discontented. The greatest part 
of the whigs, by being now either in the arm/ or employed in some 
public service, are buyers only and not sellers, and as this evil has 
its origin in trade, it cannot be charged on those who are out of it. 
But the grievance has now become too general to be remedied 
by partial methods, and the only effectual cure is to reduce the 
quantity of money : with half the quantity we should be richer 
than we are now, because the value of it would be doubled, and 
consequently our attachment to it increased ; for it is not the 
number of dollars that a man has, but how far they will go, that 
makes him either rich or poor. 

These two points being admitted, viz. that the quantity of 
money is too great, and that the prices of goods can only be 
effectually reduced by reducing the quantity of the money, the 
next point to be considered is, the method how to reduce it. 

The circumstances of the times, as before observed, require that 
the public characters of all men should now be fully understood, 
and the only general method of ascertaining it is by an oath or 
affirmation, renouncing all allegiance to the king of Great Britain, 
and to support the independence of the United States, as declared 
by congress. Let, at the same time, a tax of ten, fifteen, or 
twenty per cent, per annum, to be collected quarterly, be levied 
on all property. These alternatives, by being perfectly volun- 
tary, will take in all sorts of people. Here is the test ; here is the 



126 THE CRISIS. 

tax. He who takes the former, conscientiously proves his affec- 
tion to the cause, and binds himself to pay his quota by the best 
services in his power, and is thereby justly exempt from the latter ; 
and those who choose the latter, pay their quota in money, to be 
excused from the former, or rather, it is the price paid to us for 
their supposed, though mistaken, insurance with the enemy. 

But this is only a part of the advantage which would arise by 
knowing the different characters of men. The whigs stake every 
thing on the issue of their arms, while the tories, by their disaffec- 
tion, are sapping and undermining their strength ; and, of conse- 
quence, the property of the whigs is the more exposed thereby ; 
and whatever injury their estates may sustain by the movements 
of the enemy, must either be borne by themselves, who have done 
every thing which has yet been done, or by the tories, who have 
not only done nothing, but have, by their disaffection, invited the 
enemy on. 

In the present crisis we ought to know, square by square and 
house by house, who are in real allegiance with the United Inde- 
pendent States, and who are not. Let but the line be made clear 
and distinct, and all men will then know what they are to trust to. 
It would not only be good policy but strict justice, to raise fifty or 
one hundred thousand pounds, or more, if it is necessary, out of the 
estates and property of the king of England's votaries, resident in 
Philadelphia, to be distributed, as a reward to those inhabitants of 
the city and state, who should turn out and repulse the enemy, 
should they attempt to march this way ; and likewise, to bind the 
property of all such persons to make good the damages which that 
of the whigs might sustain. In the undistinguishable mode of 
conducting a war, we frequently make reprisals at sea, on the 
vessels of persons in England, who are friends to our cause, 
compared with the resident tories among us. 

In every former publication of mine, from Common Sense 
down to the last Crisis, I have generally gone on the charitable 
supposition, that the tories were rather a mistaken than a criminal 
people, and have applied argument after argument, with all the 
candor and temper which I was capable of, in order to set every 
rrart of the case clearly and fairly before them, and if possible to 
reclaim them from ruin to reason. I have done my duty by them 
and have now done with that doctrine, taking it for granted, that 
tr.ose who yet hold their disaffection, are, either a set of avaricious 



THE CRISIS. 127 

miscreants, who would sacrifice the continent to save themselves, 
or a banditti of hungry traitors, who are hoping for a division of 
the spoil. To which may be added, a list of crown or proprietary 
dependants, who, rather than go without a portion of power, would 
be content to share it with the devil. Of such men there is no 
hope ; and their obedience will only be according to the danger 
set before them, and the power that is exercised over them. 

A time will shortly arrive, in which, by ascertaining the char- 
acters of persons now, we shall be guarded against their mischiefs 
then ; for in proportion as the enemy despair of conquest, they 
will be trying the arts of seduction and the force of fear by all the 
mischiefs which they can inflict. But in war we may be certain 
of these two things, viz. that cruelty in an enemy, and motions 
made with more than usual parade, are always signs of weakness. 
lie that can conquer, finds his mind too free and pleasant to be 
brutish ; and he that intends to conquer, never makes too much 
show of his strength. 

We now know the enemy we have to do with. While drunk with 
the certainty of victory, they disdained to be civil ; and in propor- 
tion as disappointment makes them sober, and their apprehensions 
of an European war alarm them, they will become cringing and 
artful ; honest they cannot be. But our answer to them, in either 
condition they may be in, is short and full — " As free and inde- 
pendent states we are willing to make peace with you to-morrow, 
but we neither can hear nor reply in any other character." 

If Britain cannot conquer us, it proves that she is neither able 
to govern nor protect us, and our particular situation now is such, 
that any connexion with her would be unwisely exchanging a half- 
defeated enemy for two powerful ones. Europe, by every ap- 
pearance, is now on the eve, nay, on the morning twilight of a 
war, and any alliance with George the third, brings France and 
Spain upon our backs ; a separation from him attaches them to 
our side ; therefore, the only road to peace, honor and commerce, 
is Independence. 

Written this fourth year of the union, which God preserve. 

COMMON SENSE. 
Philadelphia, April 19, 1777 



THE CRISIS. 



NO. IV. 

Those who expect to reap the blessings of freedom, must, like 
men, undergo the fatigues of supporting it. The event of yes- 
terday was one of those kind alarms which is just sufficient to 
rouse us to duty, without being of consequence enough to de- 
press our fortitude. It is not a field of a few acres of ground, 
but a cause, that we are defending, and whether we defeat the 
enemy in one battle, or by degrees, the consequence will be the 
same. 

Look back at the events of last winter and the present year, 
there you will find that the enemy's successes always contributed 
to reduce them. What they have gained in ground, they paid so 
dearly for in numbers, that their victories have in the end amount- 
ed to defeats. We have always been masters at the last push, 
and always shall be while we do our duty. Howe has been once 
on the banks of the Delaware, and from thence driven back with 
loss and disgrace : and why not be again driven from the Schuyl- 
kill 1 His condition and ours are very different. He has every 
body to fight, we have only his one army to cope with, and which 
wastes away at every engagement : we can not only reinforce, but 
can redouble our numbers ; he is cut off from all supplies, and 
must sooner or later inevitably fall into our hands. 

Shall a band of ten or twelve thousand robbers, who are this 
day fifteen hundred or two thousand men less in strength than 
they were yesterday, conquer America, or subdue even a single 
state 1 The thing cannot be, unless we sit down and suffer them 



THE CRISIS. 129 

to do it. Another such a brush, notwithstanding we lost the 
ground, would, by still reducing the enemy, put them in a condi- 
tion to be afterwards totally defeated. 

Could our whole army have come up to the attack at one time, 
the consequences had probably been otherwise ; but our having 
different parts of the Brandywine creek to guard, and the uncer- 
tainty which road to Philadelphia the enemy would attempt to 
take, naturally afforded them an opportunity of passing with their 
main body at a place where only a part of ours could be posted ; 
for it must strike every thinking man with conviction, that it re- 
quires a much greater force to oppose an enemy in several places, 
than is sufficient to defeat him in any one place. 

Men who are sincere in defending their freedom, will always 
feel concern at every circumstance which seems to make against 
them ; it is the natural and honest consequence of all alfectionate 
attachments, and the want of it is a vice. But the dejection lasts 
only for a moment ; they soon rise out of it with additional vigor ; 
the glow of hope, courage and fortitude, will, in a little time, sup- 
ply the place of every inferior passion, and kindle the whole heart 
into heroism. 

There is a mystery in the countenance of some causes, which 
we have not always present judgment enough to explain. It 
is distressing to see an enemy advancing into a country, but it is 
the only place in which we can beat them, and in which we have 
always beaten them, whenever they made the attempt. The 
nearer any disease approaches to a crisis, the nearer it is to a 
cure. Danger and deliverance make their advances together, 
and it is only the last push, in which one or the other takes the 
lead. 

There are many men who will do their duty when it is not 
wanted ; but a genuine public spirit always appears most when 
there is most occasion for it. Thank God ! our army, though fa- 
tigued, is yet entire. The attack made by us yesterday, was un- 
der many disadvantages, naturally arising from the uncertainty ot 
knowing which route the enemy would take ; and, from that cir- 
cumstance, the whole of our force could not be brought up to- 
gether time enough to engage all at once. Our strength is yet 
reserved ; and it is evident that Howe does not think himself a 
gainer by the affair, otherwise he would this morning have moved 
down and attacked general Washington. 

VOL I. 17 



130 THE CRISIS. 

Gentlemen of the city and country, it is in your power, by a 
spirited improvement of the present circumstance, to turn it to 
a real advantage. Howe is now weaker than before, and every 
shot will contribute to reduce him. You are more immediately 
interested than any other part of the continent ; your all is at 
stake ; it is not so with the general cause ; you are devoted by 
the enemy to plunder and destruction : it is the encouragement 
which Howe, the chief of plunderers, has promised his army. 
Thus circumstanced, you may save yourselves by a manly resis- 
tance, but you can have no hope in any other conduct. I never 
yet knew our brave general, or any part of the army, officers or 
men, out of heart, and I have seen them in circumstances a thou- 
sand times more trying than the present. It is only those that are 
not in action, that feel languor and heaviness, and the best way to 
rub it off is to turn out, and make sure work of it. 

Our army must undoubtedly feel fatigue, and want a reinforce- 
ment of rest, though not of valour. Our own interest and happi- 
ness call upon us to give them every support in our power, and make 
the burden of the day, on which the safety of this city depends, as 
light as possible. Remember, gentlemen, that we have forces both 
to the northward and southward of Philadelphia, and if the enemy 
be but stopped till those can arrive, this city will be saved, and 
the enemy finally routed. You have too much at stake to hesi- 
tate. You ought not to think an hour upon the matter* but to 
spring to action at once. Other states have been invaded, have 
likewise driven off the invaders. Now our time and turn is come, 
and perhaps the finishing stroke is reserved for us. When we 
look back on the dangers we have been saved from, and reflect 
on the success we have been blessed with, it would be sinful 
either to be idle or to despair. 

I close this paper with a short address to general Howe. You, 
sir, are only lingering out the period that shall bring with it your 
defeat. You have yet scarce began upon the war, and the further 
you enter, the faster will your troubles thicken. What you now 
enjoy is only a respite from ruin ; an invitation to destruction ; 
something that will lead on to our deliverance at your expense. 
We know the cause which we are engaged in, and though a pas- 
sionate fondness for it may make us grieve at every injury which 
threatens it, yet, when the moment of concern is over, the deter- 
mination to dutv returns. We are not moved by the glo.omy 



THE CRISIS. 131 

smile of a worthless king, but by the ardent glow of generous 
patriotism. We fight not to enslave, but to set a country free, 
and to make room upon the earth for honest men to live in. In 
such a case we are sure that we are right ; and we leave to you 
the despairing reflection of being the tool of a miserable tyrant. 

COMMON SENSE. 
Philadelphia, Sejyf. 12, 1777. 



THE CRISIS. 



KTO. V. 

TO GEN. SIR WILLIAM HOWE. 

To argue with a man who has renounced the use and authority 
of reason, and whose philosophy consists in holding humanity in 
contempt, is like administering medicine to the dead, or endeavor- 
ing to convert an atheist by scripture. Enjoy, sir, your insensi- 
bility of feeling and reflecting. It is the .prerogative of animals. 
And no man will envy you those honors, in which a savage only 
can be your rival and a bear your master. 

As the generosity of this country rewarded your brother's ser- 
vices last war, with an elegant monument in Westminster Abbey, 
it is consistent that she should bestow some mark of distinction 
upon you. You certainly deserve her notice, and a conspicuous 
place in the catalogue of extraordinary persons. Yet it would be 
a pity to pass you from the world in state, and consign you to 
magnificent oblivion among the tombs, without telling the future 
beholder why. Judas is as much known as John, yet history 
ascribes their fame to very different actions. 

Sir William hath undoubtedly merited a monument ; but of 
what kind, or with what inscription, where placed or how embel- 
lished, is a question that would puzzle all the heralds of St. 
James's in the profoundest mood of historical deliberation. We 
are at no loss, sir, to ascertain your real character, but somewhat 
perplexed how to perpetuate its identity, and preserve it uninjured 
from the transformations of time or mistake. A statuary may 
give a false expression to your bust, or decorate it with some 
equivocal emblems, by which you may happen to steal into repu- 



THE cRrsis. 133 

tation and impose upon the hereafter traditionary world. Ill na- 
ture or ridicule may conspire, or a variety of accidents combine 
to lessen, enlarge, or change Sir William's fame ; and no doubt 
but he who has taken so much pains to be singular in his conduct, 
would choose to be just as singular in his exit, his monument and 
his epitaph. 

The usual honours of the dead, to be sure, are not sufficiently 
sublime, to escort a character like you to the republic of dust and 
ashes ; for however "men may differ in their ideas of grandeur or 
of government here, the grave is nevertheless a perfect republic. 
Death is not the monarch of the dead, but of the dying. The 
moment he obtains a conquest he loses a subject, and, like the 
foolish king you serve, will, in the end, war himself out of all his 
dominions. 

As a proper preliminary towards the arrangement of your fune- 
ral honours, we readily admit of your new rank of knighthood. 
The title is perfectly in character, and is your own, more by merit 
than creation. There are knights of various orders, from the 
knight of the windmill to the knight of the post. The former is 
your patron for exploits, and the latter will assist you in settling 
your accounts. No honorary title could be more happily applied ! 
The ingenuity is sublime! And your royal master hath discover- 
ed more genius in fitting you therewith, than in generating the 
most finished figure for a button, or descanting on the properties 
of a button mould. 

But how, sir, shall we dispose of you ? The invention of a 
statuary is exhausted, and Sir William is yet unprovided with a 
monument. America is anxious to bestow her funeral favours 
upon you, and wishes to do it in a manner that shall distinguish 
you from all the deceased heroes of the last war. The Egyptian 
method of embalming is not known to the present age, and hiero- 
glyphical pageantry hath outlived the science of decyphering it. 
Some other method, therefore, must be thought of to immortalize 
the new knight of the windmill and post. Sir William, thanks to 
his stars, is not oppressed with very delicate ideas. He has no 
ambition of being wrapped up and handed about in myrrh, aloes 
and cassia. Less expensive odors will suffice ; and it fortunately 
happens, that the simple genius of America hath discovered the 
art of preserving bodies, and embellishing them too, with much 
greater frugality than the ancients. In balmage, sir, of humble 



134 THE CRISIS. 

tar, you will be as secure as Pharaoh, and in a hieroglyphic of 
feathers, rival in finery all the mummies of Egypt. 

As you have already made your exit from the moral world, and 
by numberless acts both of passionate and deliberate injustice 
engraved an " here lyeth" on your deceased honor, it must be 
mere affectation in you to pretend concern at the humours or 
opinions of mankind respecting you. What remains of you may 
expire at any time. The sooner the better. For he who survives 
his reputation, lives out of despite of himself, like a man listening 
to his own reproach. 

Thus entombed and ornamented, I leave you to the inspection 
of the curious, and return to the history of your yet surviving ac- 
tions. — The character of Sir William hath undergone some ex- 
traordinary revolutions since his arrival in America. It is now 
fixed and known ; and we have nothing to hope from your can- 
dor or to fear from your capacity. Indolence and inability have 
too large a share in your composition, ever to suffer you to be any 
thing more than the hero of little villanies and unfinished adven- 
tures. That, which to some persons appeared moderation in you 
at first, was not produced by any real virtue of your own, but by 
a contrast of passions, dividing and holding you in perpetual irre- 
solution. One vice will frequently expel another, without the 
least merit in the man ; as powers in contrary directions reduce 
each other to rest. 

It became you to have supported a dignified solemnity of cha- 
racter ; to have shown a superior liberality of soul ; to have won 
respect by an obstinate perseverance in maintaining order, and to 
have exhibited on all occasions, such an unchangeable gracious- 
ness of conduct, that while we beheld in you the resolution of an 
enemy, we might admire in you the sincerity of a man. You 
came to America under the high sounding titles of commander 
and commissioner ; not only to suppress what you call rebellion, 
by arms, but to shame it out of countenance, by the excellence of 
your example. Instead of which, you have been the patron of 
low and vulgar frauds, the encourager of Indian cruelties ; and 
have imported a cargo of vices blacker than those which you pre- 
tend to suppress. 

Mankind are not universally agreed in their determination of 
right and wrong ; but there are certain actions which the consent 
of all nations and individuals hath branded with the unchangeable 



THE CRISIS. 



135 



name of meanness. In the list of human vices we find some of 
such a refined constitution, they cannot be carried into practice 
without seducing some virtue to their assistance ; but meanness 
hath neither alliance nor apology. It is generated in the dust and 
sweepings of other vices, and is of such a hateful figure that all 
the rest conspire to disown it. Sir William, the commissioner of 
George the third, hath at last vouchsafed to give it rank and pedi- 
gree. He has placed the fugitive at the council board, and dubbed 
it companion of the order of knighthood. 

The particular act of meanness which I allude to in this de- 
scription, is forgery. You, sir, have abetted and patronised the 
forging and uttering counterfeit continental bills. In the same 
New- York newspapers in which your own proclamation under 
your master's authority was published, offering, or pretending to 
offer, pardon and protection to these states, there were repeated 
advertisements of counterfeit money for sale, and persons who 
have come officially from you, and under the sanction of your flag, 
have been taken up in attempting to put them off. 

A conduct so basely mean in a public character is without pre- 
cedent or pretence. Every nation on earth, whether friends or 
enemies, will unite in despising you. 'Tis an incendiary war 
upon society, which nothing can excuse or palliate. — An improve- 
ment upon beggarly villany — and shows an inbred wretchedness 
of heart made up between the venomous malignity of a serpent 
and the spiteful imbecility of an inferior reptile. 

The laws of any civilized country would condemn you to the 
gibbet without regard to your rank or titles, because it is an ac- 
tion foreign to the usage and custom of war ; and should you 
fall into our hands, which pray God you may, it will be a doubtful 
matter whether we are to consider you as a military prisoner or 
a prisoner for felony. 

Besides, it is exceedingly unwise and impolitic in you, or any 
other persons in the English service ; to promote or even encou- 
rage, or wink at the crime of forgery, in any case whatever. 
Because, as the riches of England, as a nation, are chiefly in pa- 
per, and the far greater part of trade among individuals is carried 
on by the same medium, that is, by notes and drafts on one ano- 
ther, they, therefore, of all people in the world, ought to endea- 
vour to keep forgery out of sight, and, if possible, not to revive 
the idea of it. It is dangerous to make men familar with a crime 



136 THE CRISIS. 

which they may afterwards practise to much greater advantage 
against those who first taught them. Several officers in the 
English army have made their exit at the gallows for forgery on 
their agents ; for we all know, who know any thing of England, 
that there is not a more necessitous body of men, taking them 
generally, than what the English officers are. They contrive to 
make a show at the expense of the tailors, and appear clean at 
the charge of the washer-women. 

England, hath at this time, nearly two hundred million pounds 
sterling of public money in paper, for which she hath no real pro- 
perty : besides a large circulation of bank notes, bank post bills, 
and promissory notes and drafts of private bankers, merchants 
and tradesmen. She hath the greatest quantity of paper currency 
and the least quantity of gold and silver of any nation in Europe ; 
the real specie which is about sixteen millions sterling, serves 
only as change in large sums, which are always made in paper, or 
for payment in small ones. Thus circumstanced, the nation is 
put to its wit's end, and obliged to be severe almost to criminality, 
to prevent the practice and growth of forgery. Scarcely a ses- 
sion passes at the Old Bailey, or an execution at Tyburn, but 
witnesseth this truth, yet you, sir, regardless of the policy which 
her necessity obliges her to adopt, have made your whole army 
intimate with the crime. And as all armies, at the conclusion of 
a war, are too apt to carry into practice the vices of the campaign, 
it will probably happen, that England will hereafter abound in 
forgeries, to which art, the practitioners were first initiated under 
your authority in America. You, sir, have the honour of adding 
a new vice to the military catalogue ; and the reason, perhaps, 
why the invention was reserved for you, is, because no general 
before was mean enough even to think of it. 

That a man whose soul is absorbed in the low traffic of vulgar 
vice, is incapable of moving in any superior region, is clearly 
shown in you by the event of every campaign. Your military 
exploits have been without plan, object or decision. Can it be 
possible that you or your employers suppose that the possession 
of Philadelphia will be any ways equal to the expense or expecta- 
tion of the nation which supports you 1 What advantages does 
England derive from any achievements of yours? To her it is 
perfectly indifferent what place you are in, so long as the business 



THE CRISIS. 137 

of conquest is unperformed and the charge of maintaining you 
remains the same. 

If the principal events of the three campaigns be attended to, the 
balance will appear against you at the close of each ; but the last, 
in point of importance to us, has exceeded the former two. It is 
pleasant to look back on dangers past, and equally as pleasant to 
meditate on present ones when the way out begins to appear. 
That period is now arrived, and the long doubtful winter of war 
is changing to the sweeter prospects of victory and joy. At the 
close of the campaign, in 1775, you were obliged to retreat from 
Boston. In the summer of 1776, you appeared with a numerous 
fleet and army in the harbor of New-York. By what miracle the 
continent was preserved in that season of danger is a subject of 
admiration ! If instead of wasting your time against Long-Island, 
you had run up the North river, and landed any where above 
New- York, the consequence must have been, that either you 
would have compelled general Washington to fight you with very 
unequal numbers, or he must have suddenly evacuated the city 
with the loss of nearly all the stores of his army, or have surren- 
dered for want of provisions ; the situation of the place naturally 
producing one or the other of these events. 

The preparations made to defend New-York were, neverthe- 
less, wise and military ; because your forces were then at sea, 
their numbers uncertain ; storms, sickness, or a variety of acci- 
dents might have disabled their coming, or so diminished them on 
their passage, that those which survived would have been incapa- 
ble of opening the campaign with any prospect of success ; in 
which case the defence would have been sufficient and the place 
preserved : for cities that have been raised from nothing with an 
infinitude of labor and expense, are not to be thrown away on the 
bare probability of their being taken. On these grounds the pre- 
parations made to maintain New-York were as judicious as 
the retreat afterwards. While you, in the interim, let slip the 
very opportunity which seemed to put conquest in your power. 

Through the whole of that campaign you had nearly double 
the forces which general Washington immediately commanded. 
The principal plan at that time, on our part, was to wear away the 
season with as little loss as possible, and to raise the army for 
the next year. Long-Island, New-York, forts Washington and 
Lee were not defended after your superior force was known, 

vol i. 18 



138 THE CRISIS. 

under any expectation of their being finally maintained, but as a 
range of outworks, in the attacking of which your time might be 
wasted, your numbers reduced, and your vanity amused by posses- 
sing them on our retreat. It was intended to have withdrawn the 
garrison from fort Washington after it had answered the former of 
those purposes, but the fate of that day put a prize into your 
hands without much honor to yourselves. 

Your progress through the Jerseys was accidental ; you had it 
not even in contemplation, or you would not have sent a principal 
part of your forces to Rhode-Island before hand. The utmost 
hope of America in the year 1776, reached no higher than that 
she might not then be conquered. She had no expectation of 
defeating you in that campaign. Even the most cowardly 
tory allowed, that, could she withstand the shock of that summer 
her independence would be past a doubt. You had then greatly 
the advantage of her. You were formidable. Your military 
knowledge was supposed to be complete. Your fleets and forces 
arrived without an accident. You had neither experience nor 
reinforcements to wait for. You had nothing to do but to begin, 
and your chance lay in the first vigorous onset. 

America was young and unskilled. She was obliged to trust 
her defence to time and practice ; and hath, by mere dint of per- 
severance, maintained her cause, and brought the enemy to a 
condition, in which she is now capable of meeting him on any 
grounds. 

It is remarkable that in the campaign of 1776, you gained no 
more, notwithstanding your great force, than what was given you 
by consent of evacuation, except fort Washington ; while every 
advantage obtained by us was by fair and hard fighting. The 
defeat of Sir Peter Parker was complete. The conquest of the 
Hessians at Trenton, by the remains of a retreating army, which 
but a few days before you affected to despise, is an instance of 
their heroic perseverance very seldom to be met with. And the 
victory over the British troops at Princeton, by a harrassed and 
wearied party, who had been engaged the day before and march- 
ed all night without refreshment, is attended with such a scene of 
circumstances and superiority of generalship, as will ever give 
it a place in the first rank in the history of great actions. 

When I look back on the gloomy days of last winter, and see 
America suspended by a thread, I feel a triumph of joy at tho 



THE CRISIS. 139 

recollection of her delivery, and a reverence for the characters 
which snatched her from destruction. To doubt now would be 
a species of infidelity, and to forget the instruments winch saved 
us then would be ingratitude. 

The close of that campaign left us with the spirit of con- 
querors. The northern districts were relieved by the retreat of 
general Carleton over the lakes. The army under your com- 
mand were hunted back and had their bounds prescribed. The 
continent began to feel its military importance, and the winter 
passed pleasantly away in preparations for the next campaign. 

However confident you might be on your first arrival, the result 
of the year 1776 gave you some idea of the difficulty, if not 
impossibility of conquest. To this reason I ascribe your delay 
in opening the campaign of 1777. The face of matters, on 
the close of the former year, gave you no encouragement to pur- 
sue a discretionary war as soon as the spring admitted the taking 
the field ; for though conquest, in that case, would have given 
you a double portion of fame, yet the experiment was too hazard 
ous. The ministry, had you failed, would have shifted the 
whole blame upon you, charged you with having acted without 
orders, and condemned at once both your plan and execution. 

To avoid the misfortunes, which might have involved you and 
your money accounts in perplexity and suspicion, you prudently 
waited the arrival of a plan of operations from England, which 
was that you should proceed for Philadelphia by way of the 
Chesapeake, and that Burgoyne, after reducing Ticonderoga, 
should take his rout by Albany, and, if necessary, join you. 

The splendid laurels of the last campaign have flourished in the 
north. In that quarter America has surprised the world, and laid 
the foundation of this year's glory. The conquest of Ticonde- 
roga, (if it may be called a conquest) has, like all your other 
victories, led on to ruin. Even the provisions taken in that fort- 
ress (which by general Burgoyne's return was sufficient in bread 
and flour for nearly 5000 men for ten weeks, and in beef and 
pork for the same number of men for one month) served only to 
hasten his overthrow, by enabling him to proceed to Saratoga, the 
place of his destruction. A short review of the operations of the 
last campaign will show the condition of affairs on both sides. 

You have taken Ticonderoga and marched into Philadelphia. 
These are all the events which the year hath produced on your 



140 THE CRISIS. 

part. A trifling campaign indeed, compared with the expenses 
of England and the conquest of the continent. On the other 
side, a considerable part of your northern force has been routed 
by the New-York militia under general Herkemer. Fort Stan- 
wix has bravely survived a compound attack of soldiers and 
savages, and the besiegers have fled. The battle of Bennington 
has put a thousand prisoners into our hands, with all their arms, 
stores, artillery and baggage. General Burgoyne, in two engage- 
ments, has been defeated ; himself, his army, and all that were 
his and theirs are now ours. Ticonderoga and Independence 
are retaken, and not the shadow of an enemy remains in all the 
northern districts. At this instant we have upwards of eleven 
thousand prisoners, between sixty and seventy pieces of brass 
ordinance, besides small arms, tents, stores, &c. 

In order to know the real value of those advantages, we must 
reverse the scene, and suppose general Gates and the force 
he commanded, to be at your mercy as prisoners, and general 
Burgoyne, with his army of soldiers and savages, to be already 
joined to you in Pennsylvania. So dismal a picture can scarcely 
be looked at. It has all the tracings and colorings of horror 
and despair ; and excites the most swelling emotions of gratitude, 
by exhibiting the miseries we are so graciously preserved from. 

I admire the distribution of laurels around the continent. It is 
the earnest of future union. South-Carolina has had her day of 
sufferings and of fame ; and the other southern states have 
exerted themselves in proportion to the force that invaded or 
insulted them. Towards the close of the campaign, in 1776, 
these middle states were called upon and did their duty nobly. 
They were witnesses to the almost expiring flame of human 
freedom. It was the close struggle of life and death. The line 
of invisible division : and on which, the unabated fortitude of a 
Washington prevailed, and saved the spark that has since blazed 
in the north with unrivalled lustre. 

Let me ask, sir, what great exploits have you performed ? 
Through all the variety of changes and opportunities which the 
war has produced, I know no one action of yours that can be 
gtyled masterly. You have moved in and out, backward and 
forward, round and round, as if valor consisted in a military jig. 
The history and figure of your movements would be truly ridicu- 
lous could they be justly delineated. They resemble the labours 



THE CRISIS. 141 

of a puppy pursuing his tail ; the end is still at the same distance, 
and all the turnings round must be done over again. 

The first appearance of affairs at Ticonderoga wore such an 
unpromising aspect, that it was necessary, in July, to detach a 
part of the forces to the support of that quarter, which were other- 
wise destined or intended to act against you ; and this, perhaps, has 
been the means of postponing your downfall to another campaign. 
The destruction of one army at a time is work enough. We 
know, sir, what we are about, what we have to do, and how to 
do it. 

Your progress from the Chesapeake, was marked by no capital 
stroke of policy or heroism. Your principal aim was to get 
general Washington between the Delaware and Schuylkill, and 
between Philadelphia and your army. In that situation, with a 
river on each of his flanks, which united about five miles below 
the city, and your army above him, you could have intercepted 
his reinforcements and supplies, cut off all his communication with 
the country, and, if necessary, have despatched assistance to 
open a passage for general Burgoyne. This scheme was too visi- 
ble to succeed : for had general Washington suffered you to 
command the open country above him, I think it a very reason- 
able conjecture that the conquest of Burgoyne would not have 
taken place, because you could, in that case, have relieved him. 
It was therefore necessary, while that important victory was in 
suspense, to trepan you into a situation in which you could only 
be on the defensive, without the power of affording him assis- 
tance. The manoeuvre had its effect, and Burgoyne was con- 
quered. 

There has been something unmilitary and passive in you from 
the time of your passing the Schuylkill and getting possession of 
Philadelphia, to the close of the campaign. You mistook a trap 
for a conquest, the probability of which had been made known to 
Europe, and the edge of your triumph taken off by our own infor- 
mation long before. 

, Having got you into this situation, a scheme for a general at- 
tack upon you at Germantown was carried into execution on 
the 4th of October, and though the success was not equal to the 
excellence of the plan, yet the attempting it proved the genius of 
America to be on the rise, and her power approaching to superi- 
ority. The obscurity of the morning was your best friend, for a 



142 THE CRISIS. 

fog is always favourable to a hunted enemy. Some weeks after 
this you likewise planned an attack on general Washington, while 
at Whitemarsh. You marched out with infinite parade, but on 
finding him preparing to attack you next morning, you prudently 
turned about, and retreated to Philadelphia with all the precipita- 
tion of a man conquered in imagination. 

Immediately after the battle of Germantown, the probability of 
Burgoyne's defeat gave a new policy to affairs in Pennsylvania, 
and it was judged most consistent with the general safety of 
America, to wait the issue of the northern campaign. Slow and 
sure is sound work. The news of that victory arrived in our 
camp on the 18th of October, and no sooner did the shout of joy, 
and the report of the thirteen cannon reach your ears, than you 
resolved upon a retreat, and the next day, that is, on the 19th, 
you withdrew your drooping army into Philadelphia. This move- 
ment was evidently dictated byfear ; and carried with it a positive 
confession that you dreaded a second attack. It was hiding 
yourself among women and children, and sleeping away the 
choicest part of a campaign in expensive inactivity. An army in 
a city can never be a conquering army. The situation admits 
only of defence. It is mere shelter : and every military power 
in Europe will conclude you to be eventually defeated. 

The time when you made this retreat was the very time you 
ought to have fought a battle, in order to put yourself in a con- 
dition of recovering in Pennsylvania what you had lost in Sarato- 
ga. And the reason why you did not, must be either prudence or 
cowardice ; the former supposes your inability, and the latter 
needs no explanation. I draw no conclusions, sir, but such as 
are naturally deduced from known and visible facts, and such as 
will always have a being while the facts which produced them re- 
main unaltered. 

After this retreat a new difficulty arose which exhibited the 
power of Britain in a very contemptible light ; which was the at- 
tack and defence of Mud-Island. For several weeks did that 
little unfinished fortress stand out against all the attempts of admi- 
ral and general Howe. It was the fable of Bender realized on 
the Delaware. Scheme after scheme, and force upon force were 
tried and defeated. The garrison, with scarce any thing to cover 
them but their bravery, survived in the midst of mud, shot and 



THE CRISIS. 143 

shells, and were at last obliged to give it up. more to the powers of 
time and gunpowder than to military superiority of the besiegers. 

It is my sincere opinion that matters are in a much worse con- 
dition with you than what is generally known. Your master's 
speech at the opening of parliament, is like a soliloquy on ill luck. 
It shows him to be coming a little to his reason, for sense of pain 
is the first symptom of recovery in profound stupefaction. His 
condition is deplorable. He is obliged to submit to all the insults 
of France and Spain, without daring to know or resent them ; 
and thankful for the most trivial evasions to the most humble 
remonstrances. The time was when he could not deign an an- 
swer to a petition from America, and the time now is when he 
dare not give an answer to an affront from France. The capture 
of Burgoyne's army will sink his consequence as much in Europe 
as in America. In his speech he expresses his suspicions at the 
warlike preparations of France and Spain, and as he has only the 
one army which you command to support his character in the world 
with, it remains very uncertain when, or in what quarter it will be 
most wanted, or can be best employed ; and this will partly 
account for the great care you take to keep it from action and 
attacks, for should Burgoyne's fate be yours, which it probably 
will, England may take her endless farewell not only of all 
America but of all the West-Indies. 

Never did a nation invite destruction upon itself with the eager- 
ness and the ignorance with which Britain has done. Bent upon 
the ruin of a young and unoffending country, she has drawn the 
sword that has wounded herself to the heart, and in the agony of 
her resentment has applied a poison for a cure. Her conduct 
towards America is a compound of rage and lunacy ; she aims at 
the government of it, yet preserves neither dignity nor character 
in her methods to obtain it. Were government a mere manu- 
facture or article of commerce, immaterial by whom it should be 
made or sold, we might as well employ her as another, but when 
we consider it as the fountain from whence the general manners 
and morality of a country take their rise, that the persons intrusted 
with the execution thereof are by their serious example and au- 
thority to support these principles, how abominably absurd is the 
idea of being hereafter governed by a set of men who have been 
guilty of forgery, perjury, treachery, theft, and every species of 
villany which the lowest wretches on earth could practise or 



144 THE CRISIS. 

invent. What greater public curse can befal any country than to 
be under such authority, and what greater blessing than to be de- 
livered therefrom. The soul of any man of sentiment would 
rise in brave rebellion againt them, and spurn them from the 
earth. 

The malignant and venomous tempered general Vaughan has 
amused his savage fancy in burning the whole town of Kingston, 
in York government, and the late governor of that state, Mr. 
Tyron, in his letter to general Parsons, has endeavoured to justify 
it, and declared his wish to bum the houses of every commitee- 
man in the country. Such a confession from one who was once 
intrusted with the powers of civil government, is a reproach to 
the character. But it is the wish and the declaration of a man, 
whom anguish and disappointment have driven to despair, and 
who is daily decaying into the grave with constitutional rotten- 
ness. 

There is not in the compass of language a sufficiency of words 
to express the baseness of your king, his ministry and his army. 
They have refined upon villany till it wants a name. To the 
fiercer vices of former ages they have added the dregs and scum- 
mings of the most finished rascality, and are so completely sunk 
in serpentine deceit, that there is not left among them one gener- 
ous enemy. 

From such men and such masters, may the gracious hand of 
Heaven preserve America ! And though the sufferings she now 
endures are heavy, and severe, they are like straws in the wind 
compared to the weight of evils she would feel under the govern ■ 
ment of your king, and his pensioned parliament. 

There is something in meanness which excites a species of 
resentment that never subsides, and something in cruelty which 
stirs up the heart to the highest agony of human hatred ; Britain 
hath filled up both these characters till no addition can be made, 
and hath not reputation left with us to obtain credit for the slightest 
promise. The will of God hath parted us, and the deed is regis- 
tered for eternity. When she shall be a spot scarcely visible 
among the nations, America shall flourish the favorite of heaven, 
and the friend of mankind. 

For the domestic happiness of Britain and the peace of the 
world, I wish she had not a foot of land but what is circumscribed 
within her own island. Extent of dominion has been her ruin, 



THE CRISIS. 145 

and instead of civilizing others has brutalized herself. Her late 
reduction of India, under Clive and his successors, was not so 
properly a conquest as an extermination of mankind. She is the 
only power who could practise the prodigal barbarity of tying men 
to the mouths of loaded cannon and blowing them away. It 
happens that general Eurgoyne, who made the report of that 
horrid transaction, in the house of commous, is now a prisoner 
with us, and though an enemy, I can appeal to him for the truth of 
it, being confident that he neither can nor will deny it. Yet 
Clive received the approbation of the last parliament. 

When we take a survey of mankind, we cannot help cursing the 
wretch, who, to the unavoidable misfortunes of nature, shall wil- 
fully add the calamities of war. One would think there were evils 
enough in the world without studying to increase them, and that life 
is sufficiently short without shaking the sand that measures it. The 
histories of Alexander, and Charles of Sweden, are the histories 
of human devils ; a good man cannot think of their actions 
without abhorrence, nor of their deaths without rejoicing. To see 
the bounties of heaven destroyed, the beautiful face of nature 
laid waste, and the choicest works of creation and art tumbled 
into ruin, would fetch a curse from the soul of piety itself. But in 
this country the aggravation is heightened by a new combination 
of affecting circumstances. America was young, and, compared 
with other countries, was virtuous. None but a Herod of uncom- 
mon malice would have made war upon infancy and innocence : 
and none but a people of the most finished fortitude, dared under 
those circumstances, have resisted the tyranny. The natives, or 
their ancestors, had fled from the former oppressions of England, 
and with the industry of bees had changed a wilderness into a 
habitable world. To Britain they were indebted for nothing. 
The country was the gift of heaven, and God alone is their 
Lord and Sovereign. 

The time, sir, will come when you, in a melancholy hour, shall 
reckon up your miseries by your murders in America. Life, with 
you, begins to wear a clouded aspect. The vision of pleasurable 
delusion is wearing away, and changing to the barren wild of age 
and sorrow. The poor reflection of having served your king 
will yield you no consolation in your parting moments. He will 
crumble to the same undistinguished ashes with yourself, and have 
sins enough oi' his own to answer for. It is not the farcical 

vol.. i. 19 



146 THE CRISIS. 

benedictions of a bishop, nor the cringing hypocrisy of a court of 
chaplains, nor the formality of an act of parliament, that can 
change guilt into innocence, or make the punishment one pang 
the less. You may, perhaps, be unwilling to be serious, but this 
destruction of the goods of Providence, this havoc of the human 
race, and this sowing the world with mischief, must be accounted 
for to him who made and governs it. To us they are only pre- 
sent sufferings, but to him they are deep rebellions. 

If there is a sin superior to every other, it is that of wilful and 
offensive war. Most other sins are circumscribed within narrow 
limits, that is, the power of one man cannot give them a very 
general extension, and many kinds of sins have only a mental 
existence from which no infection arises ; but he who is the 
author of a war, lets loose the whole contagion of hell, and opens 
a vein that bleeds a nation to death. We leave it to England and 
Indians to boast of these honors ; we feel no thirst for such 
savage glory ; a nobler flame, a purer spirit animates America. 
She has taken up the sword of virtuous defence ; she has bravely 
put herself between Tyranny and Freedom, between a curse and 
a blessing, determined to expel the one and protect the other. 

It is the object only of war that makes it honourable. And if 
there was ever a just war since the world began, it is this in which 
America is now engaged. She invaded no land of yours. She 
hired no mercenaries to burn your towns, nor Indians to massacre 
their inhabitants. She wanted nothing from you, and was indebted 
for nothing to you : and thus circumstanced, her defence is 
honorable and her posterity is certain. 

Yet it is not on the justice only, but likewise on the importance 
of this cause that I ground my seeming enthusiastical confidence 
of our success. The vast extension of America makes her of 
too much value in the scale of Providence, to be cast, like a 
pearl before swine, at the feet of an European island ; and of 
much less consequence would it be that Britain were sunk in the 
sea than that America should miscarry. There has been such a 
chain of extraordinary events in the discovery of this country at 
first, in the peopling and planting it afterwards, in the rearing and 
nursing it to its present state, and in the protection of it through 
the present war, that no man can doubt, but Providence hath some 
nobler end to accomplish, than the gratification of the petty 



THE CRISIS. 147 

elector of Hanover, or the ignorant and insignificant king of Bri- 
tain. 

As the blood of the martyrs hath been the seed of the Christian 
church, so the political persecutions of England will and has al 
ready enriched America with industry, experience, union, and im- 
portance. Before the present era she was a mere chaos of 
uncemented colonies, individually exposed to the ravages of the 
Indians and the invasion of any power that Britain should be at 
war with. She had nothing that she could call her own. Her 
felicity depended upon accident. The convulsions of Europe 
might have thrown her from one conqueror to another, till she had 
been the slave of all, and ruined by every one ; for until she had 
spirit enough to become her own master, there was no knowing to 
which master she should belong. That period, thank God, is 
past, and she is no longer the dependant, disunited colonies of 
Britain, but the Independent and United States of America, 
knowing no master but heaven and herself. You, or your king, 
may call this " delusion," " rebellion," or what name you please. 
To us it is perfectly indifferent. The issue will determine the 
character, and time will give it a name as lasting as his own. 

You have now, sir, tried the fate of three campaigns, and can 
fully declare to England, that nothing is to be got on your 
part, but blows and broken bones, and nothing on hers but 
waste of trade and credit, and an increase of poverty and 
taxes. You are now only where you might have been two 
years ago, without the loss of a single ship, and yet not a 
step more forward towards the conquest of the continent; 
because, as I have already hinted, " an army in a city can 
never be a conquering army." The full amount of your losses, 
since the beginning of the war, exceeds twenty thousand men, 
besides millions of treasure, for which you have nothing in ex- 
change. Our expenses, though great, are circulated within our 
selves. Yours is a direct sinking of money, and that from both 
ends at once ; first, in hiring troops out of the nation, and in pay- 
ing them afterwards, because the money in neither case can re 
turn to Britain. We are already in possession of the prize, you 
only in pursuit of it. To us it is a real treasure, to you it would 
be only an empty triumph. Our expenses will repay themselves 
with tenfold interest, while yours entail upon you everlasting 
poverty. 



148 THE CRISIS. 

Take a review, sir, of the ground which you have gone over, 
and let it teach you policy, if it cannot honesty. You stand but 
on a very tottering foundation. A change of the ministry in Eng- 
land may probably bring your measures into question, and your 
head to the block. Clive, with all his successes, had some diffi- 
culty in escaping, and yours being all a war of losses, will afford 
you less pretensions, and your enemies more grounds for im- 
peachment. 

Go home, sir, and endeavour to save the remains of your ruined 
country, by a just representation of the madness of her measures. 
A few moments, well applied, may yet preserve her from political 
destruction. I am not one of those who wish to see Europe in a 
flame, because I am persuaded that such an event will not shorten 
the war. The rupture, at present, is confined between the two 
powers of America and England. England finds that she cannot 
conquer America, and America has no wish to conquer England. 
You are fighting for what you can never obtain, and we defending 
what we never mean to part with. A few words, therefore, settle 
the bargain. Let England mind her own business and we will 
mind ours. Govern yourselves, and we will govern ourselves. 
You may then trade where you please unmolested by us, and we 
will trade where we please unmolested by you ; and such articles 
as we can purchase of each other better than elsewhere may be 
mutually done. If it were possible that you could carry on the 
war for twenty years you must still come to this point at last, 01 
worse, and the sooner you think of it the better it will be for you. 

My official situation enables me to know the repeated insults 
which Britain is obliged to put up with from foreign powers, and 
the wretched shifts that she is driven to, to gloss them over. Her 
reduced strength and exhausted coffers in a three years war with 
America, hath given a powerful superiority to France and Spain. 
She is not now a match for them. But if neither councils can 
prevail on her to think, nor sufferings awaken her to reason, she 
must e'en go on, till the honour of England becomes a proverb of 
contempt, and Europe dub her the Land of Fools. 

I am, Sir, with every wish for an honourable peace, 
Your friend, enemy, and countryman, 

COMMON SENSE 



THE CRISIS. 149 

TO THE INHABITANTS OF AMERICA. 

With all the pleasure with which a man exchanges bad com- 
pany for good, I take my leave of Sir William and return to you. 
It is now nearly three years since the tyranny of Britain received 
its first repulse by the arms of America. A period which has 
given birth to a new world, and erected a monument to the folly 
of the old.. 

I cannot help being sometimes surprised at the complimentary 
references which I have seen and heard made to ancient histories 
and transactions. The wisdom, civil governments, and sense of 
honor of the states of Greece and Rome, are frequently held 
up as objects of excellence and imitation. Mankind have 
lived to very little purpose, if, at this period of the world, they 
must go two or three thousand years back for lessons and exam- 
ples. We do great injustice to ourselves by placing them in 
such a superior line. We have no just authority for it, neither 
can we tell why it is that we should suppose ourselves in- 
ferior. 

Could the mist of antiquity be cleared away, and men and 
things be viewed as they really were, it is more than probable 
that they would admire us, rather than we them. America has 
surmounted a greater variety and combination of difficulties, 
than, I believe, ever fell to the share of any one people, in the 
same space of time, and has replenished the world with mojre 
useful knowledge and sounder maxims of civil government than 
were ever produced in any age before. Had it not been for 
America, there had been no such thing as freedom left throughout 
the whole universe. England hath lost hers in a long chain 
of right reasoning from wrong principles, and it is from this 
country, now, that she must learn the resolution to redress herself, 
and the wisdom how to accomplish it. 

The Grecians and Romans were strongly possessed of the 
spirit of liberty but not the principle, for at the time that they 
were determined not to be slaves themselves, they employed 
their power to enslave the rest of mankind. Rut this distinguish- 
ed era is blotted by no one misanthropical vice. In short, if the 
principle on which the cause is founded, the universal blessings 
that are to arise from it, the difficulties that accompanied it, the 
wisdom with which it has been debated, the fortitude by which it 



15t THE CRISIS. 

has been supported, the strength of the fower which we had to 
oppose, and the condition in which we undertook it, be all 
taken in one view, we may justly style it the most virtuous 
and illustrious revolution that ever graced the history of man- 
kind. 

A good opinion of ourselves is exceedingly necessary in pri- 
vate life, but absolutely necessary in public life, and of the 
utmost importance in supporting national character. I have no 
notion of yielding the palm of the United States to any Grecians 
or Romans that were ever born. We have equalled the bravest 
in times of danger, and excelled the wisest in construction of civil 
governments. 

From this agreeable eminence let us take a review of present 
affairs. The spirit of corruption is so inseparably interwoven 
with British politics, that their ministry suppose all mankind 
are governed by the same motives. They have no idea of 
a people submitting even to temporary inconvenience from an 
attachment to rights and privileges. Their plans of business 
are calculated by the hour and for the hour, and are uniform 
in nothing but the corruption which gives them birth. They 
never had, neither have they at this time, any regular plan for 
the conquest of America by arms. They know not how to go 
about it, neither have they power to effect it if they did know. 
The thing is not within the compass of human practicability, for 
America is too extensive either to be fully conquered or passively 
defended. But she may be actively defended by defeating or 
making prisoners of the army that invades her. And this is 
the only system of defence that can be effectual in a large 
country. 

There is something in a war carried on by invasion which 
makes it differ in circumstances from any other mode of war, 
because he who conducts it cannot tell whether the ground he 
gains be for him, or against him, when he first obtains it. In 
the winter of 1776, general Howe marched with an air of victory 
through the Jerseys, the consequence of which was his defeat ; 
and general Burgoyne at Saratoga experienced the same fate 
from the same cause. The Spaniards, about two years ago, were 
defeated by the Algerines in the same manner, that is, their first 
triumphs became a trap in which they were totally routed. And 
whoever will attend to the circumstances and events of a 



THE CRISIS. 151 

w*r carried oa by invasion, will find, that any invader, in order 
tc be finally conquered must first begin to conquer. 

I confess myself one of those who believe the loss of Phila- 
delphia to be attended with more advantages than injuries. 
The case stood thus : The enemy imagined Philadelphia to be 
of more importance to us than it really was ; for we all know 
that it had long ceased to be a port : not a cargo of goods had 
been brought into it for near a twelvemonth, nor any fixed 
manufactories, nor even ship-building, carried on in it ; yet as 
the enemy believed the conquest of it to be practicable, and to 
that belief added the absurd idea that the soul of all America 
was eentred there, and would be conquered there, it naturally 
follows that their possession of it, by not answering the end 
proposed, must break up the plans they had so foolishly gone 
upon, and either oblige them to form a new one, for which 
their present strength is not sufficient, or to give over the 
attempt. 

"We never had so small an army to fight against, nor so fair 
an opportunity of final success as no jr. The death wound is 
already given. The day is ours if we follow it up. The enemy, 
by his situation, is within our reach, and by his reduced strength 
is within our power. The ministers of Britain may rage as 
they please, but our part is to conquer their armies. Let them 
wrangle and welcome, but let it not draw our attention from the 
one thing needful. Here, % n this spot is our own business to be 
accomplished, our felicity secured. "What we have now to do 
is as clear as light, and the way to do it is as straight as a hne. 
It needs not to be commented upon, yet, in order to be per- 
fectly understood I will put a case that cannot admit of a mis- 
take. 

Had the armies under generals Howe and Burgoyne been 
united, and taken post at Germantown, and had the northern army 
under general Gates been joined to that under general Washing- 
ton, at Whitemarsh, the consequence would have been a general 
action ; and if in that action we had killed and taken the same 
number of officers and men, that is, between nine and ten thou- 
sand, with the same quantity of artillery, arms, stores, &c. as 
have been taken at the northward, and obliged general Howe with 
the remains of his army, that is. with the same number he now 



152 THE CRISIS. 

commands, to take shelter in Philadelphia, we should certainly 
have thought ourselves the greatest heroes in the world ; and 
should, as soon as the season permitted, have collected together 
all the force of the continent and laid siege to the city, for it 
requires a much greater force to besiege an enemy in a town 
than to defeat him in the field. The^ case now is just the same 
as if it had been produced by the means I have here supposed. 
Between nine and ten thousand have been killed and taken, all 
their stores are in our possession, and general Howe, in conse- 
quence of that victory, has thrown himself for shelter into Phila- 
delphia. He, or his trifling friend Galloway, may form what 
pretences they please, yet no just reason can be given for theii 
going into winter quarters so early as the 19th of October, but 
their apprehensions of a defeat if they continued out, or their con- 
scious inability of keeping the field with safety. I see no advan- 
tage which can arise to America by hunting the enemy from state 
to state. It is a triumph without a prize, and wholly unworthy 
the attention of a people determined to conquer. Neither can 
any state promise itself security while the enemy remains in a 
condition to transport themselves from one part of the continent 
to another. Howe, likewise, cannot conquer where we have no 
army to oppose, therefore any such removals in him are mean 
and cowardly, and reduces Britain to a common pilferer. If 
he retreats from Philadelphia, he will be despised ; if he stays, 
he may be shut up and starved out, and the country, if he advances 
into it, may become his Saratoga. He has his choice of evils 
and we of opportunities. If he moves early, it is not only a sign 
but a proof that he expects no reinforcement, and his delay will 
prove that he either waits for the arrival of a plan to go upon, 
or force to execute it, or both; in which case our strength will 
increase more than his, therefore in any case we cannot be wrong 
if we do but proceed. 

The particular condition of Pennsylvania deserves the attention 
of all the other states. Her military strength must not be 
estimated by the number of inhabitants. Here are men of all 
nations, characters, professions and interests. Here are the 
firmest whigs, surviving, like sparks in the ocean, unquenched 
and uncooled in the midst of discouragement and disaffection. 
Here are men losing their all with cheerfulness, and collecting 
fire and fortitude from the flames of their own estates. Here ar« 



THE CRISIS. 153 

ethers skulking in secret, many making a market of the times, 
and numbers who are changing to whig or tory with the circum- 
stances of every day. 

It is by mere dint of fortitude and perseverance that the whigs 
of this state have been able to maintain so good a countenance, 
and do even what they have done. We want help, and the sooner 
it can arrive the more effectual it will be. The invaded state, 
be it which it may, will always feel an additional burden upon its 
back, and be hard set to support its civil power with sufficient 
authority : and this difficulty will rise or fall, in proportion as the 
other states throw in their assistance to the common cause. 

The enemy will most probably make many manoeuvres at the 
opening of this campaign, to amuse and draw off the attention of 
the several states from the one thing needful. We may expect to 
hear of alarms and pretended expeditions to this place and that 
place, to the southward, the eastward, and the northward, all 
intended to prevent our forming into one formidable body. The 
less the enemy's strength is, the more subtleties of this kind will 
they make use of. Their existence depends upon it, because 
the force of America, when collected, is sufficient to swallow their 
present army up. It is therefore our business to make short 
work of it, by bending our whole attention to this one principal 
point, for the instant that the main body under general Howe is 
defeated, all the inferior alarms throughout the continent, like so 
many shadows, will follow his downfall. 

The only way to finish a war with the least possible bloodshed, 
or perhaps without any, is to collect an army, against the power of 
which the enemy shall have no chance. By not doing this, we 
prolong the war, and double both the calamities and expenses of 
it. What a rich and happy country would America be, were she, 
by a vigorous exertion, to reduce Howe as she has reduced Bur- 
goyne. Her currency would rise to millions beyond its present 
value. Every man would be rich, and every man would have it 
in his power to be happy. And why not do these things 1 What 
is there to hinder ] America is her own mistress and can do 
what she pleases. 

If we had not at this time a man in the field, we could, neverthe- 
less, raise an army in a few weeks sufficient to overwhelm all the 
force which general Howe at present commands. Vigor and 
determination will do any thing and every thing. We began the 
you i. 20 



t54 . THE CRISIS. 

war with this kind of spirit, why not end it with the same 1 Here, 
gentlemen, is the enemy. Here is the army. The interest, the 
happiness of all America, is centred in this half ruined spot. 
Come and help us. Here are laurels, come and share them. 
Here are tories, come and help us to expel them. Here are 
whigs that will make you welcome, and enemies that dread your 
coming. 

The worst of all policy is that of doing things by halves. Penny 
wise and pound foolish, has been the ruin of thousands. The 
present spring, if rightly improved, will free us from all troubles, 
and save us the expense of millions. We have now only one army 
to cope with. No opportunity can be fairer ; no prospect more 
promising. I shall conclude this paper with a few outlines of a 
plan, either for filling up the battalions with expedition, or for 
raising an additional force, for any limited time, on any sudden 
emergency. 

That in which every man is interested, is every man's duty to 
support. And any burden which falls equally on all men, and 
from which every man is to receive an equal benefit, is consistent 
with the most perfect ideas of liberty. I would wish to revive 
something of that virtuous ambition which first called America into 
the field. Then every man was eager to do his part, and perhaps 
the principal reason why we have in any degree fallen therefrom, 
is, because we did not set a right value by it at first, but left it to 
blaze out of itself, instead of regulating and preserving it by just 
proportions of rest and service. 

Suppose any state whose number of effective inhabitants was 
80,000, should be required to furnish 3,200 men towards the 
defence of the continent on any sudden emergency. 

1st, Let the whole number of effective inhabitants be divided 
into hundreds ; then if each of those hundreds turn out four men, 
the whole number of 3,200 will be had. 

2d, Let the name of each hundred men be entered in a book, 
and let four dollars be collected from each man, with as much 
more as any of the gentlemen, whose abilities can afford it, shall 
please to throw in, which gifts likewise shall be entered against 
the names of the donors. 

3d, Let the sums so collected be offered as a present, over and 
above the bounty of twenty dollars, to any four who may 
be inclined to propose themselves as volunters : if more than 



THE CRISIS. 155 

four offer, the majority of the subscribers present shall deter- 
mine which ; if none offer, then four out of the hundred shall 
be taken by lot, who shall be entitled to the said sums, and shall 
either go, or provide others that will, in the space of six days. 

4th, As it will always happen, that in the space of ground on 
which an hundred men shall live, there will be always a number of 
persons who, by age and infirmity, are incapable of doing personal 
service, and as such persons are generally possessed of the 
greatest part of the property in any country, their portion of ser- 
vice, therefore, will be to fiirnish each man with a blanket, which 
will make a regimental coat, jacket, and breeches, or clothes in 
lieu thereof, and another for a watch cloak, and two pair of shoes ; 
for however choice people may be of these things matters not in 
cases of this kind ; those who live always in houses can find 
many ways to keep themselves warm, but it is a shame and a sin 
to surfer a soldier in the field to want a blanket while there is one 
in the country. 

Should the clothing not be wanted, the superannuated or infirm 
persons possessing property, may, in lieu thereof, throw in their 
money subscriptions towards increasing the bounty ; for though 
age will naturally exempt a person from personal service, it can- 
not exempt him from his share of the charge, because the men are 
raised for the defence of property and liberty jointly. 

There never was a scheme against which objections might not 
be raised. But this alone is not a sufficient reason for rejection. 
The only line to judge truly upon, is, to draw out and admit all 
the objections which can fairly be made, and place against them 
all the contrary qualities, conveniences and advantages, then by 
striking a balance you come at the true character of any scheme 
principle or position. 

The most material advantages of the plan here proposed are, 
ease, expedition, and cheapness ; yet the men so raised get a 
much larger bounty than is any where at present given ; because 
all the expenses, extravagance, and consequent idleness of recruit- 
ing are saved or prevented. The country incurs no new dobt nor 
interest thereon; the whole matter being all settled at once 
and entirely done with. It is a subscription answering all the 
purposes of a tax, without either the charge or trouble of collect- 
ing. The men are ready for the field with the greatest possible 
expedition, because it becomes the duty of the inhabitants them- 



166 THE CRISIS. 

i 

selves, in every part of the country, to find their proportion of men, 
instead of leaving it to a recruiting sergeant, who, be he ever so 
industrious, cannot know always where to apply. 

I do not propose this as a regular digested plan, neither will the 
limits of this paper admit of any further remarks upon it. I be- 
lieve it to be a hint capable of much improvement, and as such 
submit it to the public. 

COMMON SENSE. 
Lancaster, March 21, 1778. 



THE CRISIS. 



NO. VI. 

TO THE EARL OF CARLISLE, GENERAL CLINTON, 
AND WILLIAM EDEN, Esq. BRITISH COM- 
MISSIONERS, AT NEW- YORK. 

There is a dignity in the warm passions of a whig, which 
ib never to be found in the cold malice of a tory. In the one 
nature is only heated — in the other she is poisoned. The 
instant the former has it in his power to punish, he feels a dis- 
position to forgive ; but the canine venom of the latter knows 
no relief but revenge. This general distinction will, I believe, 
apply in all cases, and suit as well the meridian of England as 
America. 

As I presume your last proclamation will undergo the stric- 
tures of other pens, I shall confine my remarks to only a few 
parts thereof. All that you have said might have been com- 
prised in half the compass. It is tedious and unmeaning, and 
only a repetition of your former follies, with here and there an 
offensive aggravation. Your cargo of pardons will have no mar- 
ket — It is unfashionable to look at them — even speculation is at 
an end. They have become a perfect drug, and no way calcu- 
lated for the climate. 

In the course of your proclamation you say, " The policy as 
well as the benevolence of Great Britain have thus far checked 
the extremes of war, when they tended to distress a people still 
considered as their fellow subjects, and to desolate a country 
shortly to become again a source of mutual advantage." What 
you mean by " the benevolence of Great Britain" is to me incon- 
ceivable. To put a plain question ; do you consider yourselves 
men or devils ? For until this point is settled, no determinate 
sense can be put upon the expression. You have already equal- 



158 THE CRISIS. 

led, and in many cases excelled, the savages of either Indies ; 
and if you have yet a cruelty in store you must have imported it, 
unmixed with every human material, from the original warehouse 
of hell. 

To the interposition of Providence, and her blessings on our 
endeavours, and not to British benevolence, are we indebted for 
the short chain that limits your ravages. Remember you do not 
at this time, command a foot of land on the continent of Amer- 
ica. Staten-Island, York-Island, a small part of Long-Island, 
and Rhode-Island, circumscribe your power ; and even those 
you hold at the expense of the West-Indies. To avoid a defeat, 
or prevent a desertion of your troops, you have taken up your 
quarters in holes and corners of inaccessible security ; and in 
order to conceal what every one can perceive, you now endea- 
vour to impose your weakness upon us for an act of mercy. If 
you think to succeed by such shadowy devices, you are but in- 
fants in the political world ; you have the A, B, C, of stratagem 
yet to learn, and are wholly ignorant of the people you have to 
contend with. Like men in a state of intoxication, you forget 
that the rest of the world have eyes, and that the same stupidity 
which conceals you from yourselves exposes you to their satire 
and contempt. 

The paragraph which I have quoted, stands as an introduction 
to the following : " But when that country (America) professes 
the unnatural design, not only of estranging herself from us, but 
of mortgaging herself and her resources to our enemies, the 
whole contest is changed : and the question is how far Great 
Britain may, by every means in her power, destroy or render use- 
less, a connexion contrived for her ruin, and the aggrandizement 
of France. Under such circumstances, the laws of self-preser- 
vation must direct the conduct of Britain, and if the British colo- 
nies are to become an accession to France, will direct her 
to render that accession of as little avail as possible to her 
enemy." 

I consider you in this declaration, like madmen biting in the 
hour of death. It contains likewise a fraudulent meanness ; for, 
in order to justify a barbarous conclusion, you have advanced a 
false position. The treaty we have formed with France is open, 
noble, and generous. It is true policy, founded on sound philoso- 
phy, and neither a surrender or mortgage, as you would scanda- 



THE CRISIS. 159 

lously insinuate. I have seen every article, au<l speak from 
positive knowledge. In France, we have found an affectionate 
friend and faithful ally ; in Britain, we have found nothing but 
tyranny, cruelty, and infidelity. 

But the happiness is, that the mischief you threaten, is not in 
your power to execute ; and if it were, the punishment would 
return upon you in a ten-fold degree. The humanity of America 
hath hitherto restrained her from acts of retaliation, and the affec- 
tion she retains for many individuals in England, who have fed, 
clothed and comforted her prisoners, has, to the present day, 
warded off her resentment, and operated as a screen to the whole. 
But even these considerations must cease, when national objects 
interfere and oppose them. Repeated ae;gra\ations will provoke 
a retort, and policy justify the measure We mean now to 
take you seriously up upon your own ground and principle, and 
as you do, so shall yon be done by. 

You ought to know, gentlemen, that England and Scotland, are 
far more exposed to incendiary desolation than America, in her 
present state, can possibly be. We occupy a country, with but 
few towns, and whose riches consist in land and annual produce. 
The two last can sutler but little, and that only within a very 
limited compass. In Britain it is otherwise. Her wealth lies 
chiefly in cities and large towns, the depositories of manufac- 
tures ami fleets of merchantmen. — There is not a nobleman's 
country seat but may be laid in ashes by a single person. Your 
own may probably contribute to the proof" : in short, there is no 
evil which cannot be returned when you come to incendiary mis- 
chief. — The ships in the Thames, may certainly be as easily set 
on fire, as the temporary bridge was a few years ago ; yet of that 
affair no discovery was ever made ; and the loss you would sus- 
tain by such an event, executed at a proper season, is in- 
finitely greater than any you can inflict. The East-India 
house, and the bank, neither are, nor can be secure from this sort 
of destruction, and, as Dr. Price justly observes, a fire at the 
latter would bankrupt the nation. It has never been the custom 
of France and England when at war, to make those havocs on 
each other, because the ease with which they could retaliate, 
rendered it as impolitic as if each had destroyed his own. 

But think not, gentlemen, that our distance secures you, or our 
invention fails us, We can much easier accomplish such a point 



160 THE CRISIS. 

than any nation in Europe. We talk the same language, dress in 
the same habit, and appear with the same manners as yourselves. 
We can pass from one part of England to another unsuspected ; 
many of us are as well acquainted with the country as you are, 
and should you impolitically provoke us, you will most assuredly 
lament the effects of it. Mischiefs of this kind require no army 
to execute them. The means are obvious, and the opportunities 
unguardable. I hold up a warning to your senses, if you have 
any left, and " to the unhappy people likewise, whose affairs are 
committed to you."* I call not with the rancour of an enemy, 
but the earnestness of a friend, on the deluded people of Eng- 
land, lest, between your blunders and theirs, they sink beneath 
the evils contrived for us. 

•• He who lives in a glass house," says a Spanish proverb, 
M should never begin throwing stones." This, gentlemen, is ex- 
actly your case, and you must be the most ignorant of mankind, 
or suppose us so, not to see on which side the balance of ac- 
counts will fall. There are many other modes of retaliation, 
which, for several reasons, I choose not to mention. But be as- 
sured of this, that the instant you put your threat into execution, 
a counter-blow will follow it. If you openly profess yourselves 
savages, it is high time we should treat you as such, and if no- 
thing but distress can recover you to reason, to punish will 
become an office of charity. 

While your fleet lay last winter in the Delaware, I offered my 
service to the Pennsylvania navy-board then at Trenton, as one 
who would make a party with them, or any four or five gentlemen, 
on an expedition down the river to set fire to it, and though it was 
not then accepted, nor the thing personally attempted, it is more 
than probable that your own folly will provoke a much more 
ruinous act. Say not when mischief is done, that you had not 
warning, and remember that we do not begin it, but mean to re- 
pay it. Thus much for your savage and impolitic threat. 

In another part of your proclamation you say, " But if the honors 
of a military life are become the object of the Americans, let 
them seek those honors under the banners of their rightful sove- 
reign, and in fighting the battles of the united British empire, 
against our late mutual and natural enemies." Surely ! the union 

* General Clinton's letter to Congress. 



THE CRISIS. 161 

of absurdity with madness was never marked in more distinguish- 
able lines than these. Your rightful sovereign, as you call him, 
may do well enough for you, who dare not inquire into the hum- 
ble capacities of the man ; but we, who estimate persons and 
things by their real worth, cannot suffer our judgments to be so 
imposed upon ; and unless it is your wish to see him exposed, it 
ought to be your endeavour to keep him out of sight. The less 
you have to say about him the better. We have done with him, 
and that ought to be answer enough. You have been often told 
so. Strange ! that the answer must be so often repeated. You 
go a begging with your king as with a brat, or with some unsale- 
able commodity you were tired of; and though every body tells 
you no, no, still you keep hawking him about. But there is one 
that will have him in a little time, and as we have no incliuatior 
to disappoint you of a customer, we bid nothing for him. 

The impertinent folly of the paragraph that I have just quoted, 
deserves no other notice than to be laughed at and thrown by, 
but the principle on which it is founded is detestable. We are 
invited to submit to a man who has attempted by every cruelty 
to destroy us, and to join him in making war against France, who 
is already at war against him for our support. 

Can Bedlam, in concert with Lucifer, form a more mad and 
devilish request ? Were it possible a people could sink into such 
apostacy they would deserve to be swept from the earth like the 
inhabitants of Sodom and Gomorrah. The proposition is an 
universal affront to the rank which man holds in the creation, 
and an indignity to him who placed him there. It supposes him 
made up without a spark of honour, and under no obligation to 
God or man. 

What sort of men or Christians must you suppose the Ameri- 
cans to be, who, after seeing their most humble petitions insult- 
ingly rejected ; the most grievous laws passed to distress them 
in every quarter ; and undeclared war let loose upon them, and 
Indians and negroes invited to the slaughter ; who, after seeing 
their kinsmen murdered, their fellow citizens starved to death in 
prisons, and their houses and property destroyed and burned ; 
who, after the most serious appeals to heaven ; the most solemn 
abjuration by oath of all government connected with you, and the 
most heart-felt pledges and protestations of faith to each other ; 

VOL. I. 21 



162 THE CRISIS. 

and who, after soliciting the friendship, and entering into alliances 
with other nations, should at last break through all these obliga- 
tions, civil and divine, by complying with your horrid and infer- 
nal proposal. Ought we ever after to be considered as a part 
of the human race 1 Or ought we not rather to be blotted from 
the society of mankind, and become a spectacle of misery to the 
world? But there is something in corruption, which, like a 
jaundiced eye, transfers the colour of itself to the object it looks 
upon, and sees every thing stained and impure ; for unless you 
were capable of such conduct yourselves, you would never have 
supposed such a character in us. The offer fixes your infamy. 
It exhibits you as a nation without faith ; with whom oaths and 
treaties are considered as trifles, and the breaking them as the 
breaking of a bubble. Regard to decency, or to rank, might have 
taught you better ; or pride inspired you, though virtue could not. 
There is not left a step in the degradation of character to which 
you can now descend ; you have put your foot on the ground 
floor, and the key of the dungeon is turned upon you. 

That the invitation may want nothing of being a complete 
monster, you have thought proper to finish it with an assertion 
which has no foundation, either in fact or philosophy; and as Mr. 
Ferguson, your secretary, is a man of letters, and has made civil 
society his study, and published a treatise on that subject, I ad- 
dress this part to him. 

In the close of the paragraph which I last quoted, France is 
styled the " natural enemy" of England, and by way of lugging 
us into some strange idea, she is styled " the late mutual and 
natural enemy" of both countries. I deny that she ever was 
the natural enemy of either ; and that there does not exist in 
nature such a principle. The expression is an unmeaning bar- 
barism, and wholly unphilosophical, when applied to beings of the 
same species, let their station in the creation be what it may. 
We have a perfect idea of a natural enemy when we think of 
the devil, because the enmity is perpetual, unalterable, and una- 
bateable. It admits neither of peace, truce, or treaty ; conse- 
quently the warfare is eternal, and therefore it is natural. But 
man with man cannot arrange in the same opposition. Their 
quarrels are accidental and equivocally created. They become 
friends or enemies as the change of temper, or the cast of inter- 
est inclines them. The Creator of man did not constitute then 



THE CRISIS. 163 

the natural enemy of each other. He has not made any one 
order of beings so. Even wolves may quarrel, still they herd 
together. If any two nations are so, then must all nations be so, 
otherwise it is not nature but custom, and the offence frequently 
originates with the accuser. England is as truly the natural ene- 
my of France, as France is of England, and perhaps more so. 
Separated from the rest of Europe, she has contracted an unso- 
cial habit of manners, and imagines in others the jealousy she 
creates in herself. Never long satisfied with peace, she supposes 
the discontent universal, and buoyed up with her own importance, 
conceives herself the only object pointed at. The expression 
has been often used, and always with a fraudulent design ; for when 
the idea of a natural enemy is conceived, it prevents all other 
inquiries, and the real cause of the quarrel is hidden in the univer- 
sality of the conceit. Men start at the notion of a natural enemy, 
and ask no other question. The cry obtains credit like the 
alarm of a mad dog, and is one of those kind of tricks, which, 
by operating on the common passions, secures their interest 
through their folly. 

But we, sir, are not to be thus imposed upon. We live in a 
large world, and have extended our ideas beyond the limits and 
prejudices of an island. We hold out the right hand of friend- 
ship to all the universe, and we conceive that there is a sociali- 
ty in the manners of France, which is much better disposed to 
peace and negociation than that of England, and until the latter 
becomes more civilized, she cannot expect to live long at peace 
with any power. Her common language is vulgar and offensive, 
and children with their milk suck in the rudiments of insult — 
" The arm of Britain ! The mighty arm of Britain ! Britain 
that shakes the earth to its centre and its poles ! The scourge 
of France ! The terror of the world ! That governs with a 
nod, and pours down vengeance like a God." This language 
neither makes a nation great or little ; but it shows a savageness 
of manners, and has a tendency to keep national animosity alive. 
The entertainments of the stage are calculated to the same end, 
and almost every public exhibition is tinctured with insult. Yet 
England is always in dread of France. Terrified at the appre- 
hension of an invasion. Suspicious of being outwitted in a 
treaty, and privately cringing though she is publicly offending. 
Let her, therefore, reform her manners ana 1 do justice, and sho 



164 THE CRISIS. 

will find the idea of a natural enemy, to be only a phantom 01 
her own imagination. 

Little did I think, at this period of the war, to see a proclama- 
tion which could promise you no one useful purpose whatever, and 
tend only to expose you. One would think that you were just 
awakened from a four years 7 dream, and knew nothing of what 
had passed in the interval. Is this a time to be offering pardons, 
or renewing the long forgotten subjects of charters and taxation 1 
Is it worth your while, after every force has failed you, to 
retreat under the shelter of argument and persuasion 1 Or can 
you think that we, with nearly half your army prisoners, and in 
alliance with France, are to be begged or threatened into submis 
sion by a piece of paper 1 But as commissioners at a hundred 
pounds sterling a week each, you conceive yourselves bound to 
do something, and the genius of ill fortune told you, that you 
must write. 

For my own part, I have not put pen to paper these several 
months. Convinced of our superiority by the issue of every 
campaign, I was inclined to hope, that that which all the rest of 
the world now see, would become visible to you, and therefore 
felt unwilling to ruffle your temper by fretting you with repetitions 
and discoveries. There have been intervals of hesitation in your 
conduct, from which it seemed a pity to disturb you, and a cha- 
rity to leave you to yourselves. You have often stopped, as if 
you intended to think, but your thoughts have ever been too early 
or too late. 

There was a time when Britain disdained to answer, or even hear 
a petition from America. That time is past, and she in her turn 
is petitioning our acceptance. We now stand on higher ground, 
and offer her peace ; and the time will come when she perhaps in 
vain,will ask it from us. The latter case is as probable as the former 
ever was. She cannot refuse to acknowledge our independence 
with greater obstinacy than she before refused to repeal her laws : 
and if America alone could bring her to the one, united with 
France she will reduce her to the other. There is something in 
obstinacy which differs from every other passion ; whenever it 
fails it never recovers, but either breaks like iron, or crumbles 
sulkily away like a fractured arch. Most other passions have 
their periods of fatigue and rest ; their suffering and their cure ; 
hut obstinacy has no resource, and the first wound is mortal. 



THE CRISIS. 165 

You have already begun to give it up, and you will, from the 
natural construction of the vice, find yourselves both obliged and 
inclined to do so. 

If you look back you see nothing but loss and disgrace. If 
you look forward the same scene continues, and the close is an 
impenetrable gloom. You may plan and execute little mischiefs, 
but are they worth the expense they cost you, or will such partial 
evils have any effect on the general cause 1 Your expedition-to 
Egg-Harbour, will be felt at a distance like an attack upon a hen- 
roost, and expose you in Europe, with a sort of childish phrenzy. 
Is it worth while to keep an army to protect you in writing procla- 
mations, or to get once a year into winter-quarters 1 Possessing 
yourselves of towns is not conquest, but convenience, and in 
which you will one day or other be trepanned. Your retreat from 
Philadelphia, was only a timely escape, and your next expedition 
may be less fortunate. 

It would puzzle all the politicians in the universe to conceive 
what you stay for, or why you should have staid so long. You 
are prosecuting a war in which you confess you have neither 
object nor hope, and that conquest, could it be effected, would 
not repay the charges : in the mean while the rest of your 
affairs are running to ruin, and a European war kindling against 
you. In such a situation, there is neither doubt nor difficulty ; 
the first rudiments of reason will determine the choice, for if 
peace can be procured with more advantages than even a con- 
quest can be obtained, he must be an idiot indeed that hesitates. 

But you are probably buoyed up by a set of wretched mortals, 
who, having deceived themselves, are cringing, with the duplicity 
of a spaniel, for a little temporary bread. Those men will tell 
you just what you please. It is their interest to amuse, in order 
to lengthen out their protection. They study to keep you amongst 
them for that very purpose ; and in proportion as you disregard 
their advice, and grow callous to their complaints, they will stretch 
into improbability, and season their flattery the higher. Charac- 
ters like these, are to be found in every country, and every coun- 
try will despise them. 

COMMON SENSE. 
Philadelphia, Oct. 20, 1778. 



THE CRISIS. 



NO. VIZ. 

TO THE PEOPLE OF ENGLAND. 

There are stages in the business of serious life in which to 
amuse is cruel, but to deceive is to destroy ; and it is of little 
consequence, in the conclusion, whether men deceive themselves, 
or submit, by a kind of mutual consent, to the impositions of each 
other. That England has long been under the influence of delu- 
sion or mistake, needs no other proof than the unexpected and 
wretched situation that she is now involved in : and so powerful 
has been the influence, that no provision was ever made or thought 
of against the misfortune, because the possibility of its happening 
was never conceived. 

The general and successful resistance of America, the conquest 
of Burgoyne, and a war in France, were treated in parliament as 
the dreams of a discontented opposition, or a distempered ima- 
gination. They were beheld as objects unworthy of a serious 
thought, and the bare intimation of them afforded the ministry a 
triumph of laughter. Short triumph indeed ! For every thing 
which has been predicted has happened, and all that was promised 
has failed. A long series of politics so remarkably distinguished 
by a succession of misfortunes, without one alleviating turn, must 
certainly have something in it systematically wrong. It is suffi- 
cient to awaken the most credulous into suspicion, and the most 
obstinate into thought. Either the means in your power are 
insufficient, or the measures ill planned ; either the execution has 
been bad, or the thing attempted impracticable ; or, to speak more 
emphatically, either you are not able or heaven is not willing. 
For, why is it that you have not conquered us? Who, or what 



THE CRISIS. 167 

has prevented you ? You have had every opportunity that you 
could desire, and succeeded to your utmost wish in every prepara- 
tory means. Your fleets and armies have arrived in America with- 
out an accident. No uncommon misfortune hath intervened. No 
foreign nation hath interfered until the time which you had allot- 
ted for victory was past. The opposition, either in or out of parlia- 
ment, neither disconcerted your measures, retarded or diminished 
your force. They only foretold your fate. Every ministerial 
scheme was carried with as high a hand as if the whole nation had 
been unanimous. Every thing wanted was asked for, and every 
thing asked for was granted. 

A greater force was not within the compass of your abilities to 
send, and the time you sent it was of all others the most favorable. 
You were then at rest with the whole world beside. You had the 
range of every court in Europe uncontradicted by us. You 
amused us with a tale of commissioners of peace, and under that 
disguise collected a numerous army and came almost unexpect- 
edly upon us. The force was much greater than we looked for ; 
and that which we had to oppose it with, was unequal in numbers, 
badly armed, and poorly disciplined ; beside which, it was embo- 
died only for a short time, and expired within a few months after 
your arrival. We had governments to form ; measures to con- 
cert ; an army to train, and every necessary article to import or 
to create. Our non-importation scheme had exhausted our 
stores, and your command by sea intercepted our supplies. We 
were a people unknown, and unconnected with the political world, 
and strangers to the disposition of foreign powers. Could you 
possibly wish for a more favourable conjunction of circumstances 1 
Yet all these have happened and passed away, and, as it were, 
left you with a laugh. They are likewise events of such an 
original nativity as can never happen again, unless a new world 
should arise from the ocean. 

If any thing can be a lesson to presumption, surely the circum- 
ccs of this war will have their effect. Had Britain been defeated 
by any European power, her pride would have drawn consolation 
from the importance of her conquerors ; but in the present case, she 
is excelled by those that she affected to despise, and her own opin- 
ions retorting upon herself, become an aggravation of her disgrace. 
Misfortune and experience are lost upon mankind, when they 
produce neither reflection nor reformation. Evils, like poisons, 



168 THE CRISIS. 

have their uses, and there are diseases which no other jemedy can 
reach. It has been the crime and folly of England to suppose 
herself invincible, and that, without acknowledging or perceiving 
that a full third of her strength was drawn from the country she is 
now at war with. The arm of Britain has been spoken of as the 
arm of the Almighty, and she has lived of late as if she thought 
the whole world created for her diversion. Her politics, instead 
of civilizing, has tended to brutalize mankind, and under the vain, 
unmeaning title of " Defender of the Faith," she has made war 
like an Indian against the religion of humanity. Her cruelties in 
the East Indies will never be forgotten ; and it is somewhat re- 
markable that the produce of that ruined country, transported to 
America, should there kindle up a war to punish the destroyer. 
The chain is continued, though with a mysterious kind of unifor- 
mity both in the crime and the punishment. The latter runs par- 
allel with the former, and time and fate will give it a perfect 
illustration. 

When information is withheld, ignorance becomes a reasonaoie 
excuse ; and one would charitably hope that the people of Eng- 
land do not encourage cruelty from choice but from mistake. 
Their recluse situation, surrounded by the sea, preserves them 
from the calamities of war, and keeps them in the dark as to the 
conduct of their own armies. They see not, therefore they feel 
not. They tell the tale that is told them and believe it, and ac- 
customed to no other news than their own, they receive it, strip- 
ped of its honors and prepared for the palate of the nation, 
through the channel of the London Gazette. They are made to 
believe that their generals and armies differ from those of other 
nations, and have nothing of rudeness or barbarity in them. They 
suppose them what they wish them to be. They feel a disgrace 
m thinking otherwise, and naturally encourage the belief from a 
partiality to themselves. There was a time when I felt the same 
prejudices, and reasoned from the same errors ; but experience, 
sad and painful experience, has taught me better. What the con- 
duct of former armies was, I know not, but what the conduct ot 
the present is, I well know. It is low, cruel, indolent and prom- 
gate ; and had the people of America no other cause for separa- 
tion than what the army has occasioned, that alone is cause sufli 
cient 



THE CRISIS. 169 

The field of politics in England is far more extensive than 
that of news. Men have a right to reason for themselves, and 
though they cannot contradict the intelligence in the London 
Gazette, they may frame upon it what sentiments they please. 
But the misfortune is, that a general ignorance has prevailed 
over the whole nation respecting America. The ministry and 
minority have both been wrong. The former was always so 
the latter only lately so. Politics, to be executively right, must 
have a unity of means and time, and a defect in either over- 
throws the whole. The ministry rejected the plans of the mi- 
nority while they were practicable, and joined in them when 
they became impracticable. From wrong measures they got 
into wrong time, and have now completed the circle of ab- 
surdity by closing it upon themselves. 

I happened to come to America a few months before the 
breaking out of hostilities. I found the disposition of the people 
such, that they might have been led by a thread and govern- 
ed by a reed. Their suspicion was quick and penetrating, but 
•heir attachment to Britain was obstinate, and it was at that 
time a kind of treason to speak against it. They disliked the 
ministry, but they esteemed the nation. Their idea of griev- 
ance operated without resentment, and their single object was 
reconciliation. Bad as I believed the ministry to be, I never 
conceived them capable of a measure so rash and wicked as 
the commencing of hostilities ; much less did I imagine the 
nation would encourage it. I viewed the dispute as a kind of 
law-suit, in which I supposed the parties would find a way either 
to decide or settle it. I had no thoughts of independence or of 
arms. The world could not then have persuaded me that I 
should be either a soldier or an author. If I had any talents for 
either, they were buried in me, and might ever have continued 
go, had not the necessity of the times dragged and driven them 
into action. I had formed my plan of life, and conceiving my- 
self happy, wished every body else so. But when the country, 
into which I had just set my foot, was set on fire about my ears, 
it was time to stir. It was time for every man to stir. Those 
who had been long settled had something to defend ; those who 
had just come had something to pursue ; and the call and the 
concern was equal and universal. For in a country where all 

vol. i. 22 



170 _ THE CRISIS, 

men were once adventurers, the difference of a few years in 
their arrival could make none in their right. 

The breaking out of hostilities opened a new suspicion in the 
politics of America, which, though at that time very rare, has 
since been proved to be very right. What I allude to is, " a 
secret and fixed determination in the British cabinet to annex 
America to the crown of England as a conquered country." If 
this be taken as the object, then the whole line of conduct pur- 
sued by the ministry, though rash in its origin and ruinous in its 
consequences, is nevertheless uniform and consistent in its parts. 
It applies to every case and resolves every difficulty. But if 
taxation, or any thing else, be taken in its room, there is no pro- 
portion between the object and the charge. Nothing but the 
whole soil and property of the country can be placed as a pos- 
sible equivalent against the millions which the ministry expend- 
ed. No taxes raised in America could possibly repay it. A 
revenue of two millions sterling a year would not discharge the 
sum and interest accumulated thereon, in twenty years. 

Reconciliation never appears to have been the wish or the 
object of the administration, they looked on conquest as certain 
and infallible, and, under that persuasion, sought to drive the 
Americans into what they might style a general rebellion, and 
then, crushing them with arms in their hands, reap the rich har- 
vest of a general confiscation, and silence them for ever. The 
dependants at court were too numerous to be provided for m 
England. The market for plunder in the East-Indies was over ; 
and the profligacy of government required that a new mine 
should be opened, and that mine could be no other than Ame- 
rica, conquered and forfeited. They had no where else to go. 
Every other channel was drained ; and extravagance, with the 
thirst of a drunkard, was gaping for supplies. 

If the ministry deny this to have been their plan, it becomes 
them to explain what was their plan. For either they have 
abused us in coveting property they never labored for, or thev 
have abused you in expending an amazing sum upon an incom- 
petent object. Taxation, as I mentioned before, could never be 
worth the charge of obtaining it by arms ; and any kind of formal 
obedience which America could have made, would have weighed 
with the lightness of a laugh against such a load of expense. It 
is therefore most probable, that the ministry will at last justify 



THfc CRISIS. 171 

their policy by their dishonesty, and openly declare, that their 
original design was conquest : and in this case, it well becomes 
the people of England to consider how far the nation would have 
been benefitted by the success. 

In a general view, there are few conquests that repay the 
charge of making them, and mankind are pretty well convinced 
that it can never be worth their while to go to war for profit's 
sake. If they are made war upon, their country invaded, or their 
existence at stake, it is their duty to defend and preserve them- 
selves, but in every other light, and from every other cause, is war 
inglorious and detestable. But to return to the case in question — 

When conquests are made of foreign countries, it is supposed 
that the commerce and dominion of the country which made them 
are extended. But this could neither be the object nor the con- 
sequence of the present war. You enjoyed the whole commerce 
before. It could receive no possible addition by a conquest, but 
on the contrary, must diminish as the inhabitants were reduced 
in numbers and wealth. You had the same dominion over the 
country which you used to have, and had no complaint to make 
against her for breach of any part of the contract between you or 
her, or contending against any established custom, commercial, 
political or territorial. The country and commerce were both 
your own when you began to conquer, in the same manner and 
form as they had been your own an hundred years before. Na- 
tions have sometimes been induced to make conquests for the 
sake of reducing the power of their enemies, or bringing it to a 
balance with their own. But this could be no part of your plan. 
No foreign authority was claimed here, neither was any such au- 
thority suspected by you, or acknowledged or imagined by us. 
What then, in the name of heaven, could you go to war for ? Or 
what chance could you possibly have in the event, but either to 
hold the same country which you held before, and that in a much 
worse condition, or to lose, with an amazing expense, what you 
might have retained without a farthing of charges. 

War never can be the interest of a trading nation, any more 
than quarrelling can be profitable to a man in business. But to 
make war with those who trade with us, is like setting a bull-dog 
upon a customer at the shop-door. The least degree of common 
sense shows the madness of the latter, and it will apply with the 
same force of conviction to the former. Piratical nations, having 






172 THE CRISIS. 

neither commerce or commodities of their own to lose, may make 
war upon all the world, and lucratively find their account in it ; 
but it is quite otherwise with Britain : for, besides the stoppage 
of trade in time of war, she exposes more of her own property to 
be lost, than she has the chance of taking from others. Some 
ministerial gentlemen in parliament have mentioned the greatness 
of her trade as an apology for the greatness of her loss. This is 
miserable politics indeed ! Because it ought to have been given 
as a reason for her not engaging in a war at first. The coast of 
America commands the West-India trade almost as effectually as 
the coast of Africa does that of the Straits ; and England can no 
more carry on the former without the consent of America, than 
she can the latter without a Mediterranean pass. 

In whatever light the war with America is considered upon 
commercial principles, it is evidently the interest of the people of 
England not to support it ; and why it has been supported so 
long, against the clearest demonstrations of truth and national 
advantage, is, to me, and must be to all the reasonable world, a 
matter of astonishment. Perhaps it may be said that I live in 
America, and write this from interest. To this I reply, that my 
principle is universal. My attachment is to all the world, and 
not to any particular part, and if what I advance is right, no mat- 
ter where or who it comes from. We have given the proclama- 
tion of your commissioners a currency in our newspapers, and I 
have no doubt you will give this a place in yours. To obligo 
and be obliged is fair. 

Before I dismiss this part of my address, I shall mention one 
more circumstance in which I think the people of England have 
been equally mistaken : and then proceed to other matters. 

There is such an idea existing in the world, as that of national 
honor, and this falsely understood, is oftentimes the cause of war. 
In a Christian and philosophical sense, mankind seem to have 
stood still at individual civilization, and to retain as nations all 
the original rudeness of nature. Peace by treaty is only a ces- 
sation of violence for a reformation of sentiment. It is a substi 
tute for a principle that is wanting and ever will be wanting till 
the idea of national honor be rightly understood. As individuals 
we profess ourselves Christians, but as nations we are heathens, 
Romans, and what not. I remember the late admiral Saunders 
declaring in the house of commons, and that in the time of peace, 



THE CRISIS. 173 

*♦ That the city of Madrid laid in ashes was not a sufficient atone- 
ment for the Spaniards taking off the rudder of an English sloop 
of war." I do not ask whether this is Christianity or morality, 
I ask whether it is decency ? whether it is proper language for a 
nation to use ? In private life we call it by the plain name of 
bullying, and the elevation of rank cannot alter its character. It 
is, I think, exceedingly easy to define what ought to be under- 
stood by national honor ; for that which is the best character for 
an individual is the best character for a nation ; and wherever the 
latter exceeds or falls beneath the former, there is a departure 
from the line of true greatness. 

I have thrown out this observation with a design of applying it 
to Great Britain. Her ideas of national honor, seem devoid of 
that benevolence of heart, that universal expansion of philan- 
thropy, and that triumph over the rage of vulgar prejudice, with- 
out which man is inferior to himself, and a companion of common 
animals. To know whom she shall regard or dislike, she asks 
what country they are of, what religion they profess, and what 
property they enjoy. Her idea of national honor seems to con- 
sist in national insult, and that to be a great people, is to be nei- 
ther a Christian, a philosopher, or a gentleman, but to threaten 
with the rudeness of a bear, and to devour with the ferocity of a 
lion. This perhaps may sound harsh and uncourtly, but it is too 
true, and the more is the pity. 

I mention this only as her general character. But towards 
America she has observed no character at all ; and destroyed by 
her conduct what she assumed in her title. She set out with the 
title of parent, or mother country. The association of ideas 
which naturally accompany this expression, are filled with every 
thing that is fond, tender and forbearing. They have an energy 
peculiar to themselves, and, overlooking the accidental attach- 
ment of common affections, apply with infinite softness to the 
first feelings of the heart. It is a political term which every 
mother can feel the force of, and every child can judge of. It 
needs no painting of mine to set it off, for nature only can do it 
justice. 

But has any part of your conduct to America corresponded 
with the title you set up 1 If in your general national character 
you are unpolished and severe, in this you are inconsistent and 
unnatural, and you must have exceeding false notions of national 



174 THE CRISIS. 

honor, to suppose that the world can admire a want of humanity, 
or that national honor depends on the violence of resentment, 
the inflexibility of temper, or the vengeance of execution. 

I would willingly convince you, and that with as much temper 
as the times will suffer me to do, that as you opposed your own 
interest by quarrelling with us, so likewise your national honor, 
rightly conceived and understood, was no ways called upon to 
enter into a war with America ; had you studied true greatness 
of heart, the first and fairest ornament of mankind, you would 
have acted directly contrary to all that you have done, and the 
world would have ascribed it to a generous cause ; besides 
which, you had (though with the assistance of this country) se- 
cured a powerful name by the last war. You were known and 
dreaded abroad ; and it would have been wise in you to have 
suffered the world to have slept undisturbed under that idea. It 
was to you a force existing without expense. It produced to 
you all the advantages of real power ; and you were stronger 
through the universality of that charm, than any future fleets and 
armies may probably make you. Your greatness was so secured 
and interwoven with your silence, that you ought never to have 
awakened mankind, and had nothing to do but to be quiet. Had 
you been true politicians you would have seen all this, and con- 
tinued to draw from the magic of a name, the force and authority 
of a nation. 

Unwise as you were in breaking the charm, you were still 
more unwise in the manner of doing it. Sampson only told the 
secret, but you have performed the operation ; you have shaven 
your own head, and wantonly thrown away the locks. America 
was the hair from which the charm was drawn that infatuated the 
world. You ought to have quarrelled with no power ; but with 
her upon no account. You had nothing to fear from any conde- 
scension you might make. You might have humored her, even 
if there had been no justice in her claims, without any risk to 
your reputation ; for Europe, fascinated by your fame, would 
have ascribed it to your benevolence, and America, intoxicated 
by the grant, would have slumbered in her fetters. 

But this method of studying the progress of the passions, in 
order to ascertain the probable conduct of mankind, is a philoso- 
phy in politics which those who preside at St. James's have no 
conception of. They know no other influence than corruption, 



THE CRISIS. 175 

and reckon all their probabilities from precedent. A new case 
is to them a new world, and while they are seeking for a parallel 
they get lost. The talents of lord Mansfield can be estimated at 
best no higher than those of a sophist. He understands the 
subtleties but not the elegance of nature ; and by continually 
viewing mankind through the cold medium of the law, never 
thinks of penetrating into the warmer region of the mind. As 
for lord North, it is his happiness to have in him more philosophy 
than sentiment, for he bears flogging like a top, and sleeps the 
better for it. His punishment becomes his support, for while he 
suffers the lash for his sins, he keeps himself up by twirling about. 
In politics, he is a good arithmetician, and in every thing else 
nothing at all. 

There is one circumstance which comes so much within lord 
North's province as a financier, that I am surprised it should es- 
cape him, which is, the different abilities of the two countries in 
supporting the expense ; for, strange as it may seem, England 
is not a match for America in this particular. By a curious kind 
of revolution in accounts, the people of England seem to mistake 
their poverty for their riches ; that is, they reckon their national 
debt as a part of their national wealth. They make the same 
kind of error which a man would do, who after mortgaging his 
estate, should add the money borrowed, to the full value of the 
estate, in order to count up his worth, and in this case he would 
conceive that he got rich by running into debt. Just thus it is 
with England. The government owed at the beginning of this 
war one hundred and thirty-five millions sterling, and though the 
individuals to whom it was due, had a right to reckon their shares 
as so much private property, yet to the nation collectively it was 
so much poverty. There is as effectual limits to public debts as 
to private ones, for when once the money borrowed is so great as 
to require the whole yearly revenue to discharge the interest 
thereon, there is an end to further borrowing ; in the same man- 
ner as when the interest of a man's debts amounts to the yearly 
income of his estate, there is an end to his credit. This is nearly 
the case with England, the interest of her present debt being at 
least equal to one half of her yearly revenue, so that out of ten 
millions annually collected by taxes, she has but five that she can 
call her own. 



176 THE CRISIS 

The very reverse of this was the case with America ; sne be- 
gan the war without any debt upon her, and in order to cany it 
on, she neither raised money by taxes, nor borrowed it upon in- 
terest, but created it ; and her situation at this time continues so 
much the reverse of yours that taxing would make her rich, 
whereas it would make you poor. When we shall have sunk 
the sum which we Tiave created, we shall then be out of debt, be 
just as rich as when we began, and all the while we are doing it 
shall feel no difference, because the value will rise as the quan- 
tity decreases. 

There was not a country in the world so capable of bearing 
the expense of a war as America ; not only because she was not 
in debt when she began, but because the country is young and 
capable of infinite improvement, and has an almost boundless 
tract of new lands in store ; whereas England has got to her ex- 
tent of age and growth, and has no unoccupied land or property 
in reserve. The one is like a young heir coming to a large im- 
provable estate ; the other like an old man whose chances are 
over, and his estate mortgaged for half its worth. 

In the second number of the Crisis, which I find has been re- 
published in England, I endeavored to set forth the impractica- 
bility of conquering America. I stated every case, that I con- 
ceived could possibly happen, and ventured to predict its conse- 
quences. As my conclusions were drawn not artfully, but natu- 
rally, they have all proved to be true. I was upon the spot ; 
knew the politics of America, her strength and resources, and by 
a train of services, the best in my power to render, was honored 
with the friendship of the congress, the army and the people. I 
considered the cause a just one. I know and feel it a just one, 
and under that confidence never made my own profit or loss an 
object. My endeavor was to have the matter well understood on 
both sides, and I conceived myself tendering a general service, 
by setting forth to the one the impossibility of being conquered, 
and to the other the impossibility of conquering. Most of the 
arguments made use of by the ministry for supporting the war, 
are the very arguments that ought to have been used against sup- 
porting it ; and the plans, by which they thought to conquer, are 
the very plans in which they were sure to be defeated. They 
have taken every thing up at the wrong end. Their ignorance is 
astonishing, and were you in my situation you would see it. 



THE CRISIS. 177 

They may, perhaps, have your confidence, but T am persuaded 
that they would make very indifferent members (A congress. I 
know what England is, and what America is, and from the com- 
pound of knowledge, am better enabled to judge of the issue, 
than what the king or any of his ministers can be. 

In this number I have endeavored to show the ill policy and 
disadvantages of the war. I believe many of my remarks are 
new. Those which are not so, I have studied to improve and 
place in a manner that may be clear and striking. Your failure 
is, I am persuaded, as certain as fate. America is above your 
reach. She is at least your equal in the world, and her inde- 
pendence neither rests upon your consent, nor can it be pre- 
vented by your arms. In short, you spend your substance in 
vain, and impoverish yourselves without a hope. 

But suppose you had conquered America, what advantages, 
collectively or individually, as merchants, manufacturers, or con- 
querors, could you have looked for. This is an object you 
seemed never to have attended to. Listening for the sound of 
victory, and led away by the phrenzy of arms, you neglected to 
reckon either the cost or the consequences. You must all pay 
towards the expense ; the poorest among you must bear his 
share, and it is both your right and your duty to weigh seriously 
the matter. Had America been conquered, she might have 
been parcelled out in grants to the favorites at court, but no 
share of it would have fallen to you. Your taxes would not 
have been lessened, because she would have been in no condi- 
tion to have paid any towards your relief. We are rich by a 
contrivance of our own, which would have ceased as soon as you 
became masters. Our paper money will be of no use in Eng- 
land, and silver and gold we have none. In the last war you 
made many conquests, but were any of your taxes lessened 
thereby 1 On the contrary, were you not taxed to pay for the 
charge of making them, and have not the same been the case in 
every war 1 

To the parliament I wish to address myself in a more particu- 
lar manner. They appear to have supposed themselves partners 
in the chace, and to have hunted with the lion from an expecta- 
tion of a right in the booty ; but in this it is most probable they 
would, as legislators, have been disappointed. The case is quite 
a new one, and many unforeseen difficulties would have arisen 
vox,. I. 23 



178 THE CRISIS. 

thereon. The parliament claimed a legislative right over Ame- 
rica, and the war originated from that pretence. But the army 
is supposed to belong to the crown, and if America had been 
conquered through their means, the claim of the legislature 
would have been suffocated in the conquest. Ceded, or con- 
quered, countries are supposed to be out of the authority of par- 
liament. Taxation is exercised over them by prerogative and 
not by law. It was attempted to be done in the Grenadas a few 
years ago, and the only reason why it was not done was because 
the crown had made a prior relinquishment of its claim. There- 
fore, parliament have been all this while supporting measures for 
the establishment of their authority, in the issue of which, they 
would have been triumphed over by the prerogative. This might 
have opened a new and interesting opposition between the par- 
liament and the crown. The crown would have said that it con- 
quered for itself, and that to conquer for parliament was an un- 
known case. The parliament might have replied, that America 
not being a foreign country, but a country in rebellion, could not 
be said to be conquered, but reduced ; and thus continued their 
claim by disowning the term. The crown might have rejoined, 
that however America might be considered at first, she became 
foreign at last by a declaration of independence, and a treaty with 
France ; and that her case being, by that treaty, put within the 
law of nations, was out of the law of parliament, who might have 
maintained, that as their claim over America had never been sur- 
rendered, so neither could it be taken away. The crown might 
have insisted, that though the claim of parliament could not be 
taken away, yet, being an inferior, it might be superseded ; and 
that, whether the claim was withdrawn from the object, or the 
object taken from the claim, the same separation ensued ; and 
that America being subdued after a treaty with France, was to 
all intents and purposes a regal conquest, and of course the sole 
property of the king. The parliament, as the legal delegates ot 
the people, might have contended against the term " inferior,'' 
and rested the case upon the antiquity of power, and this woula 
have brought on a set of very interesting and rational questions. 

1st, What is the original fountain of power and honor in any 
country ? 

2d, Whether the prerogative does not belong to the people ? 



THE CRISIS. 1T9 

3d, Whether there is any such thing as the English consti- 
tution 1 

4th, Of what use is the crown to the people? 

5th, Whether he who invented a crown was not an enemy to 
mankind 1 

6th, Whether it is not a shame for a man to spend a million a 
year and do no good for it, and whether the money might not be 
better applied ? 

7th, Whether such a man is not better dead than alive ! 

8th, Whether a congress, constituted like that of America, is 
not the most happy and consistent form of government in the 
world ? — With a number of others of the same import. 

In short, the contention about the dividend might have dis- 
tracted the nation ; for nothing is more common than to agree in 
the conquest and quarrel for the prize ; therefore it is, perhaps, 
a happy circumstance, that our successes have prevented the 
dispute. 

If the parliament had been thrown out in their claim, which it 
is most probable they would, the nation likewise would have 
been thrown out in their expectation ; for as the taxes would 
have been laid on by the crown without the parliament, the reve- 
nue arising therefrom, if any could have arisen, would not have 
gone into the exchequer, but into the privy purse, and so far 
from lessening the taxes, would not even have been added to 
them, but served only as pocket money to the crown. The 
more I reflect on this matter, the more I am astonished at the 
blindness and ill policy of my countrymen, whose wisdom seems 
to operate without discernment, and their strength without an 
object. 

To the great bulwark of the nation, I mean the mercantile and 
manufacturing part thereof, I likewise present my address. It is 
your interest to see America an independent, and not a conquer- 
ed country. If conquered, she is ruined ; and if ruined, poor ; 
consequently the trade will be a trifle, and her credit doubtful. 
If independent, she flourishes, and from her flourishing must 
your profits arise. It matters nothing to you who governs 
America, if your manufactures find a consumption there. Some 
articles will consequently be obtained from other places, and it is 
right that they should ; but the demand for others will increase, 
by the great influx of inhabitants which a state of independence 



ISO THE CRISIS. 

and peace will occasion, and in the final event you may be en- 
riched. The commerce of America is perfectly free, and ever 
will be so. She will consign away no part of it to any nation. 
She has not to her friends, and certainly will not to her enemies, 
though it is probable that your narrow-minded politicians, think- 
ing to please you thereby, may some time or other unnecessarily 
make such a proposal. Trade flourishes best when it is free, 
and it is weak policy to attempt to fetter it. Her treaty with 
France is on the most liberal and generous principles, and the 
Fiench, in their conduct towards her, have proved themselves to 
be philosophers, politicians, and gentlemen. 

To the ministry I likewise address myself. You, gentlemen, 
have studied the ruin of your country, from which it is not within 
your abilities to rescue her. Your attempts to recover her are 
as ridiculous as your plans which involved her are detestable. 
The commissioners, being about to depart, will probably bring 
you this, and with it my sixth number, addressed to them ; and 
in so doing they carry back more Common Sense than they 
brought, and you likewise will have more than when you sent 
them. 

Having thus addressed you severally, I conclude by address- 
ing you collectively. It is a long lane that has no turning. A 
period of sixteen years of misconduct and misfortune, is cer- 
tainly long enough for any one nation to suffer under ; and upon 
a supposition that war is not declared between France and you, 
I beg to place a line of conduct before you that will easily lead 
you out of all your troubles. It has been hinted before, and can- 
not be too much attended to. 

Suppose America had remained unknown to Europe till the 
present year, and that Mr. Banks and Dr. Solander, in another 
voyage round the world, had made the first discovery of her, in 
the same condition that she is now in, of arts, arms, numbers, 
and civilization. What, I ask, in that case, would have been 
your conduct towards her? For that will point out what it 
ought to be now. The problems and their solutions are equal, 
and the right line of the one is the parallel of the other. The 
question takes in every circumstance that can possibly arise. It 
reduces politics to a simple thought, and is moreover a moc e of 
investigation, in which, while you are studying your interest the 
simplicity of the case will cheat you into good temper. i 7 ou 



THE CRISIS. 181 

have nothing to do but to suppose that you have found America, 
and she appears found to your hand, and while in the joy of your 
heart you stand still to admire her, the path of politics rises 
straight before you. 

Were I disposed to paint a contrast, I could easily set off what 
you have done in the present case, against what you would have 
done in thai case, and by justly opposing them, conclude a pic- 
ture that would make you blush. But, as when any of the 
prouder passions are hurt, it is much better philosophy to let a 
man slip into a good temper than to attack him in a bad one ; 
for that reason, therefore, I only state the case, and leave you to 
reflect upon it. 

To go a little back into politics, it will be found that the true 
interest of Britain lay in proposing and promoting the indepen- 
dence of America immediately after the last peace ; for the ex- 
pense which Britain had then incurred by defending America as 
her own dominions, ought to have shown her the policy and ne- 
( ■« >amfty of changing the style of the country, as the best probable 
method of preventing future wars and expense, and the only 
method by which she could hold the commerce without tho 
charge of sovereignty. Besides which, the title which she as- 
sumed, of parent country, led to, and pointed out the propriety, 
wisdom and advantage of a separation ; for, as in private life, 
children grow into men, and by setting up for themselves, extend 
and secure the interest of the whole family, so in the settlement 
of colonies large enough to admit of maturity, the same policy 
should be pursued, and the same consequences would follow. 
Nothing hurts the affections both of parents and children so 
much, as living too closely connected, and keeping up the dis- 
tinction too long. Domineering will not do over those, who, by 
a progress in life, have become equal in rank to their parents, 
that is, when they have families of their own ; and though they 
may conceive themselves the subjects of their advice, will not 
suppose them the objects of their government. I do not, by 
drawing this parallel, mean to admit the title of parent country, 
because, if it is due any where, it is due to Europe collectively, 
and the first settlers from England were driven here by persecu- 
tion. I mean only to introduce the term for the sake of policy 
and to show from your title the line of your interest. 



182 



THE CRISIS. 



When you saw the state of strength and opulence, and that by 
her own industry, which America had arrived at* you ought to 
have advised her to set up for herself, and proposed an alliance 
of interest with her, and in so doing you would have drawn, and 
that at her own expense* more real advantage, and more military 
supplies and assistance, both of ships and men, than from any 
weak and wrangling government that you could exercise over 
her. In short, had you studied only the domestic politics of a 
family, you would have learned how to govern the state ; but, 
instead of this easy and natural line, you flew out into every 
thing which was wild and outrageous, till, by following the pas- 
sion and stupidity of the pilot, you wrecked the vessel within 
sight of the shore. 

Having shown what you ought to have done, I now proceed to 
show why it was not done. The caterpillar circle of the court, 
had an interest to pursue, distinct from, and opposed to yours ; 
for though by the independence of America and an alliance there- 
with, the trade would have continued, if not increased, as in many 
articles neither country can go to a better market, and though by 
defending and protecting herself, she would have been no expense 
to you, and consequently your national charges would have de- 
creased, and your taxes might have been proportionably lessened 
thereby ; yet the striking off so many places from the court ca- 
lendar was put in opposition to the interest of the nation. The 
loss of thirteen government ships, with their appendages, here 
and in England, is a shocking sound in the ear of a hungry cour- 
tier. Your present king and ministry will be the ruin of you ; 
and you had better risk a revolution and call a congress, than be 
thus led on from madness to despair, and from despair to ruin. 
America has set you the example, and you may follow it and be 
free. 

I now come to the last part, a war with France. This is what 
no man in his senses will advise you to, and all good men would 
wish to prevent. Whether France will declare war against you, 
is not for me in this place to mention, or to hint, even if I knew 
it ; but it must be madness in you to do it first. The matter is 
come now to a full crisis, and peace is easy if willingly set about. 
Whatever you may think, France has behaved handsomely to 
you. She would have been unjust to herself to have acted 
otherwise than she did ; and having accepted our offer of al- 



THE CRISIS. 183 

liance she gave you genteel notice of it. There was nothing in 
her conduct reserved or indelicate, and while she announced her 
determination to support her treaty, she left you to give the first 
offence. America, on her part, has exhibited a character of 
firmness to the world. Unprepared and unarmed, without form 
or government, she singly opposed a nation that domineered 
over half the globe. The greatness of the deed demands re- 
spect ; and though you may feel resentment, you are compelled 
both to wonder and admire. 

Here I rest my arguments and finish my address. Such as it 
is, it is a gift, and you are welcome. It was always my design to 
dedicate a Crisis to you, when the time should come that would 
properly make it a Crisis ; and when, likewise, I should catch 
myself in a temper to write it, and suppose you in a condition to 
read it. Tliat time has now arrived, and with it the opportunity 
of conveyance. For the commissioners — poor commissioners ! 
having proclaimed, that " yet forty days and Nineveh shall be 
overthrown" have waited out the date, and, discontented with 
their God, are returning to their gourd. And all the harm I 
wish them is, that it may not wither about their ears, and that 
they may not make their exit in the belly of a whale. 

COMMON SENSE. 
Philadelphia, Nov. 21, 1778. 

P. S. Though in the tranquillity of my mind I have concluded 
with a laugh, yet I have something to mention to the commis- 
sioners, which, to them, is serious and worthy their attention. 
Their authority is derived from an act of parliament, which like- 
wise describes and limits their official powers. Their commis- 
sion, therefore, is only a recital, and personal investiture, of those 
powers, or a nomination and description of the persons who are 
to execute them. Had it contained any thing contrary to, or 
gone beyond the line of, the written law from which it is derived, 
and by which it is bound, it would, by the English constitution, 
have been treason in the crown, and the king been subject to an 
impeachment. He dared not, therefore, put in his commission 
what you have put in your proclamation, that is, he dared not 
have authorised you in that commission to burn and destroy any 
thing in America. You are both in the act and in the commis- 
sion styled commissioners for restoring peace, and the methods for 



184 THE CRISIS. 

doing it are there pointed out. Your last proclamation is signed 
by you as commissioners under that act. You make parliament 
the patron of its contents. Yet, in the body of it, you insert mat- 
ters contrary both to the spirit and letter of the act, and what 
likewise your king dared not have put in his commission to you. 
The state of things in England, gentlemen, is too ticklish for you 
to run hazards. You are accountable to parliament for the exe- 
cution of that act according to the letter of it. Your heads may 
pay for breaking it, for you certainly have broke it by exceeding 
it. And as a friend, who would wish you to escape the paw of 
the lion, as well as the belly of the whale, I civilly hint to you, to 
keep within compass. 

Sir Harry Clinton, strictly speaking, is as accountable as the 
rest ; for though a general, he is likewise a commissioner, acting 
under a superior authority. His first obedience is due to the 
act ; and his plea of being a general, will not and cannot clear 
him as a commissioner, for that would suppose the crown, in its 
single capacity, to have a power of dispensing with an act of par- 
liament. Your situation, gentlemen, is nice and critical, and the 
more so because England is unsettled. Take heed ! Remember 
the times of Charles the first ! For Laud and Stafford fell by 
trusting to a hope like yours. 

Having thus shown you the danger of your proclamation, I now 
show you the folly of it. The means contradict your design ; 
you threaten to lay waste, in order to render America a useless 
acquisition of alliance to France. I reply, that the more destruc- 
tion you commit (if you could do it) the more valuable to France 
you make that alliance. You can destroy only houses and goods ; 
and by so doing you increase our demand upon her for materials 
and merchandize ; for the wants of one nation, provided it has 
freedom and credit, naturally produces riches to the other ; and, 
as you can neither ruin the land nor prevent the vegetation, you 
would increase the exportation of our produce in payment, which 
would be to her a new fund of wealth. In short, had you cast 
about for a plan on purpose to enrich your enemies, you could 

not have hit upon a better. 

C. S. 



THE CRISIS. 

NO. VIII. 

ADDRESSED TO THE PEOPLE OF ENGLAND. 

44 Trusting (says the king of England in his speech of No- 
vember last,) in the divine providence, and in the justice of my 
cause, I am firmly resolved to prosecute the war with vigor, 
and to make every exertion in order to compel our enemies to 
equitable terms of peace and accommodation." To this de- 
claration the United States of America, and the confederated 
powers of Europe will reply, if Britain will have war, she shall 
have enough of it. 

Five years have nearly elapsed since the commencement of 
hostilities, and every campaign, by a gradual decay, has lessened 
your ability to conquer, without producing a serious thought on 
your condition or your fate. Like a prodigal lingering in an ha- 
bitual consumption, you feel the relics of life, and mistake them 
for recovery. New schemes, like new medicines, have adminis- 
tered fresh hopes, and prolonged the disease instead of curing it. 
A change of generals, like a change of physicians, served only 
to keep the flattery alive, and furnish new pretences for new ex- 
travagance. 

" Can Britain fail ?"* Has been proudly asked at the un- 
dertaking of every enterprize, and that " whatever she wills i* 
fate"~\ has been given with the solemnity of prophetic con- 
fidence, and though the question has been constantly replied 
to by disappointment, and the prediction falsified by misfor- 
tune, yet still the insult continued, and your catalogue of na- 
tional evils increased therewith. Eager to persuade the world 

* Whitehead's new-year's ode for 1776. s 

f Ode at the installation of lord North, for Chancellor of the university of 
Oxford. 

vol.. I. 24 



166 THK CRISIS. 

of her power, she considered destruction as the minister of 
greatness, and conceived that the glory of a nation like that of 
an Indian, lay in the number of its scalps and the miseries which 
it inflicts. 

Fire, sword and want, as far as the arms of Britain could ex- 
tend them, have been spread with wanton cruelty along the coast 
of America ; and while you, remote from the scene of suffering, 
had nothing to lose and as little to dread, the information reached 
you like a tale of antiquity, in which the distance of time defaces 
the conception, and changes the severest sorrows into convers- 
able amusement. 

This makes the second paper, addressed perhaps in vain, to 
the people of England. That advice should be taken wherever 
example has failed ; or precept be regarded where warning 
is ridiculed, is like a picture of hope resting on despair : but 
when time shall stamp with universal currency, the facts you 
have long encountered with a laugh, and the irresistible evi- 
dence of accumulated losses, like the hand writing on the 
wall, shall add terror to distress, you will then, in a conflict of 
suffering, learn to sympathize with others by feeling for your- 
selves. 

The triumphant appearance of the combined fleets in the 
channel and at your harbor's mouth, and the expedition of 
captain Paul Jones, on the western and eastern coasts of 
England and Scotland, will, by placing you in the condi- 
tion of an endangered country, read to you a stronger lec- 
ture on the calamities of invasion, and bring to your minds 
a truer picture of promiscuous distress, than the most fin- 
ished rhetoric can describe or the keenest imagination con- 
ceive. 

Hitherto you have experienced the expenses, but nothing 
of the miseries of war. Your disappointments have been 
accompanied with no immediate suffering, and your losses 
came to you only by intelligence. Like fire at a distance 
you heard not even the cry ; you felt not the danger, you 
saw not the confusion. To you every thing has been lor- 
eign but the taxes to support it. You knew not what it 
was to be alarmed at midnight with an armed enemy in the 
streets. You were strangers to the distressing scene of a 
family in flight, and to the thousand restless cares and ten 



THE CRISI9. 1S7 

der sorrows that incessantly arose. To see women and 
children wandering in the severity of winter, with the broken 
remains of a well furnished house, and seeking shelter in 
every crib and hut, were mutters that you had no concep- 
tion of. Von know not what it was to stand by and see your 
goods chopped tor fuel, and your beds ripped to pieces to make 
package! for plunder. The misery of others, like a tempestuous 
night, added to the pleasures of your own security* You even 
nil, by contemplating the difference of conditions, 
and that, which earned sorrow into the breasts of thousands, 
d but to heighten in you a species of tranquil pride. — Yet 
these are but the fainter sufferings of war, when coopered with 
carnage and slaughter, the miseries of a military hospital, or a 

town in tin 

The people of America, by anticipating distress, had fortified 
their minds against BV< i ou could inflict They had 

resolved to abandon their homes, t<> resign them to destruction, 
and to seek nei settlements rather than submit Thus familia- 
rasi d to misfortune, before it arrived, they bore their portion with 
the 1. I : the justness of their cause was a continual 

source of consolation, and the hope of final victory, which never 
left them, served to lighten the load and sweeten the cup allotted 
them to drink. 

But when their troubles shall become yours, and invasion be 
transferred upon the invaders, you will have neither their extend- 
ed wilderness to fly to, their cause to comfort yen, nor their hope 

to rest upon. Distress with them was sharpened by no self-re- 
flection. They had not brought it on themselves. On the con- 
trary, they had by every proceeding endeavored to avoid it, and 
had descended even below the mark of congressional character, 
to prevent a war. The national honor or tin; advantages of in- 
dependence were matters, which at the commencement of the 
dispute, they had never studied, and it was only at the last mo- 
ment that the measure was resolved on. Thus circumstanced, 
they naturally and conscientiously felt a dependant upon provi- 
dence. They had a clear pretension to it, and had they failed 
therein, infidelity had gained a triumph. 

Hut your condition is the reverse of theirs. Every thing you 
suffer you have sought : nay, had you created mischiefs on pur- 
pose to inheri* them, you could not have secured your title by a 






1S9 THE CRISIS. 



firmer deed. The world awakens with no pity at your complaints. 
You felt none for others ; you deserve none for yourselves. Na- 
ture does not interest herself in cases like yours, but, on the con- 
trary, turns from them with dislike, and abandons them to punish- 
ment. You may now present memorials to what court you 
please, but so far as America is the object, none will listen. The 
policy of Europe, and the propensity there in every mind to curb 
insulting ambition, and bring cruelty to judgment, are unitedly 
against you ; and where nature and interest reinforce each other, 
the compact is too intimate to be dissolved. 

Make but the case of others your own, and your own theirs, 
and you will then have a clear idea of the whole. Had France 
acted towards her colonies as you have done, you would have 
branded her with every epithet of abhorrence ; and had you like 
her, stepped in to succour a struggling people, all Europe must 
have echoed with your own applauses. But entangled in the pas- 
sion of dispute, you see it not as you ought, and form opinions 
thereon which suit with no interest but your own. You wonder 
that America does not rise in union with you to impose on herself 
a portion of your taxes and reduce herself to unconditional sub- 
mission. You are amazed that the southern powers of Europe 
do not assist you in conquering a country which is afterwards to 
be turned against themselves ; and that the northern ones do not 
contribute to reinstate you in America who already enjoy the 
market for naval stores by the separation. You seem surprised 
that Holland does not pour in her succours, to maintain you mis- 
tress of the seas, when her own commerce is suffering by your 
act of navigation ; or that any country should study her own in- 
terest while yours is on the carpet. 

Such excesses of passionate folly, and unjust as well as unwise 
resentment, have driven you on, like Pharaoh, to unpitied mise- 
ries, and while the importance of the quarrel shall perpetuate your 
disgrace, the flag of America will carry it round the world. The 
natural feelings of every rational being will be against you, and 
wherever the story shall be told, you will have neither excuse nor 
consolation left. With an unsparing hand, and an insatiable mind, 
you have desolated the world, to gain dominion and to lose it ; 
and while, in a phrenzy of avarice and ambition, the east and the 
west are doomed to tributary bondage, you rapidly earned destruc- 
tion as the wages of a nation. 



THE CRISIS. 1S9 

At the thoughts of a war at home, every man amongst you 
ought to tremble. The prospect is far more dreadful there than 
in America. Here the party that was against the measures of 
the continent were in general composed of a kind of neutrals, 
who added strength to neither army. There does not exist a 
being so devoid of sense and sentiment as to covet " uncondition- 
al submission" and therefore no man in America could be with 
you in principle. Several might from a cowardice of mind, pre- 
fer it to the hardships and dangers of opposing it ; but the same 
disposition that gave them such a choice, unfitted them to act 
either for or against us. But England is rent into parties, with 
equal shares of resolution. The principle which produced the 
war divides the nation. Their animosities arc in (lie highest state 
of fermentation, and both sides, by a call of the militia, are in 
arms. No human foresight can discern, no conclusion can be 
formed, what turn a war might take, if once set on foot by an in- 
■ n. She is not now in a tit disposition to make a common 
cause of her own affairs, and having no conquests to hope for 
abroad, and nothing but expenses arising at home, her every thing 
is staked upon a defensive combat, and the further she gotfl the 
worse she is off. 

There are situations that a nation may be in, in which peace 
or war, abstracted from every other consideration, may be politi- 
cally right or wrong. When nothing can be lost by a war, but 
what must be lost without it, war is then the policy of that coun- 
try ; and such was the situation of America at the commencement 
of hostilities : but when no security can be gained by a war, but 
what may be accomplished by a peace, the case becomes re- 
versed, and such now is the situation of England. 

That America is beyond the reach of conquest, is a fact which 
experience has shown and time confirmed, and this admitted, 
what, I ask, is now the object of contention ? If there be any 
honor in pursuing self-destruction with inflexible passion — if na- 
tional suicide be the perfection of national glory, you may, with 
all the pride of criminal happiness, expire unenvied and unrival- 
led. But when the tumult of war shall cease, and the tempest of 
present passions be succeeded by calm reflection, or when those, 
who, surviving its fury, shall inherit from you a legacy of debts 
and misfortunes, when the yearly revenue shall scarcely be able 
to discharge the interest of the one, and no possible remedy bo 



190 THE CRISIS. 

left for the othei\ ideas, far different from the present, will arise, 
and imbitter the remembrance of former follies. A mind dis- 
armed of its rage, feels no pleasure m contemplating a frantic 
quarrel. Sickness of thought, the sure consequence of conduct 
like yours, leaves no ability for enjoyment, no relish for resent- 
ment ; and though, like a man in a fit, you feel not the injury of 
the struggle, nor distinguish between strength and disease, the 
weakness will nevertheless be proportioned to the violence, and 
the sense of pain increase with the recovery. 

To what persons or to whose system of politics you owe your 
present state of wretchedness, is a matter of total indifference to 
America. They have contributed, however unwillingly, to set 
her above themselves, and she, in the tranquillity of conquest, re- 
signs the inquiry. The case now is not so properly who began 
the war, as who continues it. That there are men in ah coun- 
tries to whom a state of war is a mine of wealth, is a fact never 
to be doubted. Characters like these naturally breed in the pu- 
trefaction of distempered times, and after fattening on the dis- 
ease, they perish with it, or, impregnated with the stench, retreat 
into obscurity. 

But there are several erroneous notions to which you likewise 
owe a share of your misfortunes, and which, if continued, will 
only increase your trouble and your losses. An opinion hangs 
about the gentlemen of the minority, that America would relish 
measures under their administration, which she would not from 
the present cabinet. On this rock lord Chatham would have split 
had he gained the helm, and several of his survivors are steering 
the same course. Such distinctions in the infancy of the argu- 
ment had some degree of foundation, but they now serve no other 
purpose than to lengthen out a war, in which the limits of a dis- 
pute, being fixed by the fate of arms, and guaranteed by treaties, 
are not to be changed or altered by trivial circumstances. 

The ministry, and many of the minority, sacrifice their time in 
disputing on a question with which they have nothing to do, name- 
ly, whether America shall be independent or not 1 Whereas the 
only question that can come under their determination is, whethei 
they will accede to it or not 1 They confound a military ques- 
tion with a political one, and undertake to supply by a vote wnat 
they lost by a battle. Say, she shall not be independent, ana it 
will signify as much as if they voted against a decree of fate, or 



THE CRISIS. 191 

say that she shall, and she will be no more independent than be- 
fore. Questions, which when determined, cannot be executed, 
serve only to show the folly of dispute and the weakness of dis- 
putants. 

From a long habit of calling Amenca your own, you suppose 
her governed by the same prejudices and conceits which govern 
yourselves. Because you have set up a particular denomination 
of religion to the exclusion of all others, you imagine she must 
do the same, and because you, with an unsociable narrowness of 
mind, have cherished enmity against France and Spain, you sup- 
Dose her alliance must be defective in friendship. Copying her 
notions of the world from you, she formerly thought as you in- 
structed, but now feeling herself free, and the prejudice removed, 
she thinks and acts upon a different system. It frequently hap- 
pens that in proportion as we are taught to dislike persons and 
countries, not knowing why, we feel an ardor of esteem upon the 
removal of the mistake : it seems as if something was to be made 
amends for, and we eagerly give into every office of friendship, to 
atone for the injury of the error. 

But, perhaps, there is something in the extent of countries, 
which, among the generality of people, insensibly communicates 
extension of the mind. The soul of an islander, in its native 
state, seems bounded by the foggy confines of the water's edge, 
and all beyond affords to him matters only for profit or curiosity, 
not for friendship. His island is to him his world, and fixed to 
that, his every thing centres in it ; while those, who are inhabit- 
ants of a continent, by casting their eye over a larger field, take 
in likewise a larger intellectual circuit, and thus approaching 
nearer to an acquaintance with the universe, their atmosphere of 
thought is extended, and their liberality fills a wider space. In 
short, our minds seem to be measured by countries when we are 
men, as they are by places when we are children, and until some- 
thing happens to disentangle us from the prejudice, we serve un- 
der it without perceiving it. 

In addition to this, it may be remarked, that men who study 
any universal science, the principles of which are universally 
known, or admitted, and applied without distinction to the com- 
mon benefit of all countries, obtain thereby a larger share of phi- 
lanthropy than those who only study national arts and improve- 
ments. Natural philosophy, mathematics and astronomy, carry 



192 THE CRISIS. 

the mind from the country to the creation, and give it a fitness 
suited to the extent. It was not Newton's honor, neither could it 
be his pride, that he was an Englishman, but that he was a philo- 
sopher : the heavens had liberated him from the prejudices of an 
island, and science had expanded his soul as boundless as his 
studies. 

COMMON SENSE. 
Philadelphia, March, 1780. 



THE CRISIS. 



NO. IX. 



,C+D< 



Had America pursued her advantages with half the spirit that 
she resisted her misfortunes, she would, before now, have been a 
conquering and a peaceful people ; but lulled in the lap of soft 
tranquillity, she rested on her hopes, and adversity only has con- 
vulsed her into action. Whether subtlety or sincerity at the close 
of the last year, induced the enemy to an appearance for peace, is 
a point not material to know : it is sufficient that we see the effects 
it has had on our politics, and that we sternly rise to resent the 
delusion. 

The war, on the part of America, has been a war of natural 
feelings. Brave in distress ; serene in conquest; drowsy while 
at rest ; and in every situation generously disposed to peace. A 
dangerous calm, and a most heightened zeal, have, as circum 
stances varied, succeeded each other. Every passion, but that 
of despair, has been called to a tour of duty ; and so mistaken 
has been the enemy, of our abilities and disposition, that when she 
supposed us conquered, we rose the conquerors. The extensive 
ness of the United States, and the variety of their resources ; the 
universality of their cause, the quick operation of their feelings, and 
the similarity of their sentiments, have, in every trying situation, 
produced a something, which, favored by providence, and pursued 
with ardor, has accomplished in an instant the business of a cam- 
paign. We have never deliberately sought victory, but snatched 
it ; and bravely undone in an hour, the blotted operations of a 
season. 

The reported fate of Charleston, like the misfortunes of 1776, 
has at last called forth a spirit, and kindled up a flame, which per* 
haps no other event could have produced. If the enemy has cjr- 

vol. i. 25 



194 THE CRISIS 

culated a falsehood, they have unwisely aggravated us into life, 
and if they have told us a truth, they have unintentionally done us 
a service. We were returning with folded arms from the fatigues 
of war, and thinking and sitting leisurely down to enjoy repose. 
The dependence that has heen put upon Charleston threw a 
drowsiness over America. We looked on the business done — 
the conflict over — the matter settled — or that all which remained 
unfinished would follow of itself. In this state of dangerous re- 
laxation, exposed to the poisonous infusions of the enemy, and 
having no common danger to attract our attention, we were ex- 
tinguishing, by stages, the ardor we began with, and surrendering 
by piece-meals the virtue that defended us. 

Afflicting as the loss of Charleston may be, yet if it universally 
rouse us from the slumber of twelve months past, and renew in us 
the spirit of former days, it will produce an advantage more im- 
portant than its loss. America ever is what she thinks herself to 
be. Governed by sentiment, and acting her own mind, she be- 
comes, as she pleases the victor or the victim. 

It is not the conquest of towns, nor the accidental capture of 
garrisons, that can reduce a country so extensive as this. The 
sufferings of one part can never be relieved by the exertions of 
another, and there is no situation the enemy can be placed in, that 
does not afford to us the same advantages which he seeks himself. 
By dividing his force, he leaves every post attackable. It is a 
mode of war that carries with it a confession of weakness, and 
goes on the principle of distress, rather than conquest. 

The decline of the enemy is visible, not only in their operations, 
but in their plans ; Charleston originally made but a secondary 
object in the system of attack, and it is now become their principle 
one, because they have not been able to succeed elsewhere. It 
would have carried a cowardly appearance in Europe had they 
formed their grand expedition, in 1776, against a part of the con- 
tinent where there was no army, or not a sufficient one to oppose 
them ; but failing year after year in their impressions here, and to 
the eastward and northward, they deserted their capital design, and 
prudently contenting themselves with what they can get, give a 
flourish of honor to conceal disgrace. 

But this piece-meal work is not conquering the continent. It 
is a discredit in them to attempt it, and in us to sufFer it. It is 
now full time to put an end to a war of aggravations, which, on one 




THE CRISIS. 195 

side, has no possible object, and on the other, has every induce- 
ment which honor, interest, safety and happiness can inspire. If 
we suffer them much longer to remain among us, we shall become 
as bad as themselves. An association of vice will reduce us more 
than the sword. A nation hardened in the practice of iniquity 
knows better how to profit by it, than a young country newly cor- 
ruoted. We are not a match for them in the line of advantageous 
guilt, nor they for us on the principles which we bravely set out 
with. Our first days were our days of honor. They have marked the 
character of America wherever the story of her wars are told : and 
convinced of this, we have nothing to do, but wisely and unitedly 
to tread the well known track. The progress of a war is often as 
ruinous to individuals, as the issue of it is to a nation ; and it is not 
only necessary that our forces be such that we be conquerors in the 
end, but that by timely exertions we be secure in the interim. The 
present campaign will atlbrd an opportunity which has never pre- 
sented itself before, and die preparations for it are equally neces- 
sary, whether Charleston stand or fall. Suppose the first, it is in 
that case only a failure of the enemy, not a defeat. All the con- 
quest that a besieged town can hope for, is, not to be conquered ; 
and compelling an enemy to raise the siege, is to the besieged 
a victory, But there must be a probability amounting almost to 
certainty, that would justify a garrison marching out to attack a 
retreat. Therefore should Charleston not be taken, and the ene- 
my abandon the siege, every other part of the continent should pre- 
pare to meet them ; and, on the contrary, should it be taken, the 
same preparations are necessary to balance the loss, and put our- 
selves in a condition to co-operate with our allies, immediately on 
their arrival. 

We are not now righting our battles alone, as we were in 1776 ; 
England, from a malicious disposition to America, has not only 
not declared war against France and Spain, but the better to pro- 
secute her passions here, has afforded those powers no military 
object, and avoids them, to distress us. She will suffer her West 
India islands to be overrun by France, and her southern settle- 
ments to be taken by Spain, rather than quit the object that grati- 
fies her revenge. This conduct, on the part of Britain, has point- 
ed out the propriety of France sending a naval and land force to 
co-operate with America on the spot. Their arrival cannot be 
very distant, nor the ravages of the enemy long. The recruit- 



' 



196 THE CRISI8. 

ing the army, and procuring the supplies, are the two things most 
necessary to be accomplished, and a capture of either of the 
enemy's divisions will restore to America peace and plenty. 

At a crisis, big, like the present, with expectation and events, 
the whole country is called to unanimity and exertion. Not an 
ability ought now to sleep, that can produce but a mite to the 
general good, nor even a whisper to pass that militates against 
it. The necessity of the case, and the importance of the conse- 
quences, admit no delay from a friend, no apology from an ene- 
my. To spare now, would be the height of extravagance, and to 
consult present ease, would be to sacrifice it perhaps forever. 

America, rich in patriotism and produce, can want neither men 
nor supplies, when a serious necessity calls them forth. The 
slow operation of taxes, owing to the extensiveness of collec- 
tion, and their depreciated value before they arrived in the troa- 
sury, have, in many instances, thrown a burden upon govern- 
ment, which has been artfully interpreted by the enemy into a 
general decline throughout the country. Yet this, inconvenient as 
it may at first appear, is not only remediable, but may be turned to 
an immediate advantage ; for it makes no real difference, whether 
a certain number of men, or company of militia (and in this coun- 
try every man is a militia-man) are directed by law to send a re- 
cruit at their own expense, or whether a tax is laid on them for that 
purpose, and the man hired by government afterwards. The first, 
if there is any difference, is both cheapest and best, because it 
saves the expense which would attend collecting it as a tax, and 
brings the man sooner into the field than the modes of recruiting 
formerly used ; and, on this principle, a law has been passed in 
this state, for recruiting two men from each company of militia, 
which will add upwards of a thousand to the force of the country. 

But the flame which has broke forth in this city since the report 
from New-York, of the loss of Charleston, not only does honor to 
the place, but, like the blaze of 1776, will kindle into action the 
scattered sparks throughout America. The valor of a country 
may be learned by the bravery of its soldiery, and the general cast 
of its inhabitants, but confidence of success is best discovered by 
the active measures pursued by men of property ; and whe^ me 
spirit of enterprise becomes so universal as to act at once on ail 
ranks of men, a war may then, and not till then, be styled truly 
popular. 



THE CRISIS. 197 

In 1776, the ardor of the enterprising part was considerably 
checked by the real revolt of some, and the coolness of others. 
But in the pre- there is a firmness in the substance and 

property of the country to the public cause. An association has 
been entered into by the merchants, tradesmen, and principal 
inhabitants of the city, to receive and support the new state 
money at the value of gold and silver; a measure which, while 
it dors them honor, will likewise contribute to their interest, by 
rendering the operations of the campaign convenient and effec- 
tual. 

r has tin; spirit of exertion stopped here. A voluntary 

subscription is likewise began, to raise a fund of hard money, to 
be given as bounties, to till up the toll quota of the. Pennsylvania 
line, it has been tin- remark of the enemy, that every thing in 
America ha- been done by the force of government j but when 
ndividuals throw mi: in their voluntary aid, and facilitating 
the public measures in concert with the established powers of the 
country, it will convince her thai the cause of America stands not 

on tin; will of a few, but on the broad foundation of property and 
popularity. 

Thus aided and thus supported, disaffection will decline, and 

the withered head of tyrannv expire in America. The ravages of 
the enemy will be short and limited, and like all their former ones, 

will produce a victory over themselvi 

COMMON SENSE. 
Philadelphia, June <>, 17so. 

(£y* At the time of writing this number of the Crisis, the loss 
of Charleston, though believed by some, was more confidently 
disbelieved by others. Hut there ought to be no longer a doubt 
upon the matter. Charleston is gone, and I believe for the want 
of a sufficient supply of provisions. The man that does not now 
feel for the honor of the best and noblest cause that ever a country 
engaged in, and exert himself accordingly, is no longer worthy of 
a peaceable residence among a people determined to be free. 

c.s. 






THE CRISIS. 



no. X. 



ON THE SUBJECT OF TAXATION. 

It is impossible to sit down and think seriously on the affairs 
of America, but the original principles on which she resisted, and 
the glow and ardor which they inspired, will occur like the un- 
defaced remembrance of a lovely scene. To trace over in 
imagination the purity of the cause, the voluntary sacrifices that 
were made to support it, and all the various turnings of the war in 
its defence, is at once both paying and receiving respect. The 
principles deserve to be remembered, and to remember them 
rightly is repossessing them. In this indulgence of generous re- 
collection, we become gainers by what we seem to give, and the 
more we bestow the richer we become. 

So extensively right was the ground on which America pro- 
ceeded, that it not only took in every just and liberal sentiment 
which could impress the heart, but made it the direct interest ot 
every class and order of men to defend the country. The war, on 
the part of Britain, was originally a war of covetousness. The 
sordid, and not the splendid passions gave it being. The fertile 
fields and prosperous infancy of America appeared to her as mines 
for tributary wealth. She viewed the hive, and disregarding the 
industry that had enriched it, thirsted for the honey. But in the 
present stage of her affairs, the violence of temper is added to the 
rage of avarice ; and therefore, that which at the first setting out 
proceeded from purity of principle and public interest, is now 
heightened by all the obligations of necessity ; for it requires 
but little knowledge of human nature to discern what would be 
the consequence, were America again reduced to the subjection 






THE CRISIS. 199 

of Britain. Uncontrolled power, in the hands of an in- 
censed, imperious, and rapacious conqueror, is an engine of 
dreadful execution, and wo be to that country over which it can be 
exercised. The names of whig and tory would then be sunk in 
the general term of rebel, and the oppression, whatever it might 
be, would, with very few instances of exception, light equally on 
all. 

Britain did not go to war with America for the sake of dominion, 
because she was then in possession ; neither was it for the ex- 
tension of trade and commerce, because she had monopolized the 
whole, and the country had yielded to it ; neither was it to 
extinguish what she might call rebellion, because before she began 
DO resistance existed. It could then be from no other motive than 
avarice, or a design of establishing, in the first instance, the same 
taxes in America as are paid in England (which, as I shall pre- 
sently show, are above eleven times heavier than the tuxes we 
now pay for the present year, 1780) or, in the second instance, to 
confiscate the whole property of America, in case of resistance 
and conquest of the latter, of which she had then no doubt. 

I shall now proceed to show what the taxes in England are, and 
what the yearly expense of the present war is to her — what the 
taxes of this country amount to, and what the annual expense of 
defending it effectually will be to us ; and shall endeavor con- 
cisely to point out the cause of our difficulties, and the advantages 
oo one side, and the consequences on the other, in case we do, or 
do not, put ourselves in an effectual state of defence. I mean 
to be open, candid, and sincere. I see a universal wish to expel 
the enemy from the country, a murmuring because the war is not 
carried on with more vigor, and my intention is to show, as 
shortly as possible, both the reason and the remedy. 

The number of souls in England (exclusive of Scotland and 
Ireland) is seven millions,* and the number of souls in America 
is three millions. 

The amount of taxes in England (exclusive of Scotland and 
Ireland) was, before the present war commenced, eleven millions 
six hundred and forty-two thousand six hundred and fifty-three 
pounds sterling ; which, on an average, is no less a sum than one 
pound thirteen shillings and three-pence sterling per head per 

* This is taking the highest number that the people of England have been, 
or can be rated at. 



200 THE CRISIS. 

annum, men, women and children ; besides county taxes, taxes 
for the support of the poor, and a tenth of all the produce of the 
earth for the support of the bishops and clergy.* Nearly live 
millions of this sum went annually to pay the interest of the 
national debt, contracted by former wars, and the remaining sum 
of six millions six hundred and forty-two thousand six hundred 
pounds was applied to defray the yearly expense of government, 
the peace establishment of the army and navy, placemen, pen- 
sioners, &c, consequently the whole of the enormous taxes being 
thus appropriated, she had nothing to spare out of them towards 
defraying the expenses of the present war or any other. Yet had 
she not been in debt at the beginning of the war, as we were no;, 
and, like us, had only a land and not a nayal war to carry on, her 
then revenue of eleven millions and a half pounds sterling would 
have defrayed all her annual expenses of war and government 
within each year 

But this not being the case with her, she is obliged to borrow 
about ten millions pounds sterling, yearly, to prosecute the war 
that she is now engaged in, (this year she borrowed twelve) and 
lay on new taxes to discharge the interest ; allowing that the pre- 
sent war has cost her only fifty millions sterling, the interest 
thereon, at five per cent., will be two millions and an half; there- 
fore the amount of her taxes now must be fourteen millions, 

* The following is taken from Dr. Price's state of the taxes of England, p. 
96, 97, 98. 

An account of the money drawn from the public by taxes, annually, being 
the medium of three years before the year 1776. 

Amount of customs in England 2,528,275/ 

Amount of the excise in England 4,649,892 

Land tax at 3s. 1,300,000 

Land tax at. Is. in the pound 450,000 

Salt duties 218,739 

Duties on stamps, cards, dice, advertisements, bonds, leases, 

indentures, newspapers, almanacks, &c. 280,788 

Duties on houses and windows 385,369 

Post office, seizures, wine licences, hackney coaches, &c, 250,000 
Annual profits from lotteries 1 50,000 

Expense of collecting the excise in England 297,887 

Expense of collecting the customs in England 468,700 

Interest of loans on the land tax at 4s. expenses of collec- 
tion, militia, &c. 250,000 
Perquisites, &c. to custom-house officers, &c. supposed 250,000 
Expense of collecting the salt duties in England 10 1-2 per 

cent- 27,000 

Bounties on fish exported 18,000 

Expense of collecting the duties on stamps, cards, adver- 
tisements, &c. at 5 and 1-4 per cent. 18,000 

Total 11,642,653/. 



THE CRISIS. 201 

which on an average is no less than forty shillings sterling, per 
head, men, women and children, throughout the nation. Now as 
this expense of fifty millions was borrowed on the hopes of con- 
quering America, and as it was avarice which first induced her to 
commence the war, how truly wretched and deplorable would the 
condition of this country be, were she, by her own remissness, to 
suffer an enemy of such a disposition, and so circumstanced, to 
reduce her to subjection. 

I now proceed to the revenues of America. 

I have already stated the number of souls in America to be 
three millions, and by a calculation that I have made, which 1 
have every reason to believe is sufficiently correct, the whole 
expense of the war, and the support of the several governments, 
may be defrayed for two million pounds sterling annually; which, 
on an average, is thirteen shillings and four pence per head, men, 
women, and children, and the peace establishment at the end of 
the war, will be but three quarters of a million, or five shillings 
sterling per head. Now, throwing out of the question every thing 
of honor, principle, happiness, freedom and reputation in the 
world, and taking it up on the simple ground of interest, I put the 
following case : 

Suppose Britain was to conquer America, and, as a conqueror, 
was to lay her under no other conditions than to pay the same 
proportion towards her annual revenue which the people of Eng- 
land pay ; our share, in that case, would be six million pounds 
sterling yearly ; can it then be a question, whether it is best to 
raise two millions to defend the country, and govern it ourselves, 
and only three quarters of a million afterwards, or pay six millions 
to have it conquered, and let the enemy govern it 1 

Can it be supposed that conquerors would choose to put them- 
selves in a worse condition than what they granted to the conquer- 
ed ? In England, the tax on rum is five shillings and one penny 
sterling per gallon, which is one silver dollar and fourteen coppers. 
Now would it not be laughable to imagine, that after the expense 
they have been at, they would let either whig or tory drink it 
cheaper than themselves ? Coffee, which is so inconsiderable an 
article of consumption and support here, is there loaded with a 
duty, which makes the price between five and six shillings per 
pound, and a penalty of fifty pounds sterling on any person detect- 
ed in roasting it in his own house. There is scarcely a necessary 

vol. I. 2G 



202 THE CRISIS. 

of lite that you can eat, drink, wear, or enjoy, that is not there 
loaded with a tax ; even the light from heaven is only permitted 
to shine into their dwellings by paying eighteen pence sterling 
per window annually ; and the humblest drink of life, small beer, 
cannot there be purchased without a tax of nearly two coppers 
per gallon, besides a heavy tax upon the malt, and another on the 
hops before it is brewed, exclusive of a land-tax on the earth which 
produces them. In short, the condition of that country, in point 
of taxation, is so oppressive, the number of her poor so great, and 
the extravagance and rapaciousness of the court so enormous, 
that, were they to effect a conquest of America, it is then only that 
the distresses of America would begin. Neither would it signify 
any thing to a man whether he be whig or tory. The people of 
England, and the ministry of that country, know us by no such dis 
tinctions. What they want is clear, solid revenue, and the modes 
which they would take to procure it, would operate alike on all. 
Their manner of reasoning would be short, because they would 
naturally infer, that if we were able to carry on a war of five or si* 
years against them, we were able to pay the same taxes which 
they do. 

I have already stated that the expense of conducting the present 
war, and the government of the several states, may be done for 
two millions sterling, and the establishment in the time of peace, 
for three quarters of a million.* 

As to navy matters, they flourish so well, and are so well at- 
tended to by individuals, that 1 think it consistent on every 
principle of real use and economy, to turn the navy into hard 
money (keeping only three or four packets) and apply it to the 
service of the army. We shall not have a ship the less ; the use 
of them, and the benefit from them, will be greatly increased, and 
their expense saved. We are now allied with a formidable naval 
power, from whom we derive the assistance of a navy. And the 
line in which we can prosecute the war, so as to reduce the com- 
mon enemy and benefit the alliance most effectually, will be by 
attending closely to the land service. 

I estimate the charge of keeping up and maintaining an army 
officering them, and all expenses included, sufficient for the de- 

* I have made the calculations in sterling, because it is a rate generally 
Known in all the states, and because, likewise, it admits of an easy compari- 
son between our expenses to support the war, and those of the enemy. Four 
silver dollars and a half is one pound sterling, and three ponce over. 



THK CRISIS. 203 

fence of the country, to be equal to the expense of forty thousand 
men at thirty pounds sterling per' head, which is one million two 
hundred thousand pounds. 

I likewise allow four hundred thousand pounds for continental 
expenses at home and abroad. 

And four hundred thousand pounds for the support of the several 
state governments — the amount will then be, 

For the army 1,200,000*. 

Continental expenses at home and abroad 400,000 
Government of the several states 400,000 



Total 2,000,000*. 

I take the proportion of this state, Pennsylvania, to be an 
eighth part of the thirteen United States ; the quota then for us to 
raise will be two hundred and fifty thousand pounds sterling ; two 
hundred thousand of which will be our share for the support and 
pay of the army, and continental expenses at home and abroad, 
and fifty thousand pounds for the support of the state government 

In order to gain an idea of the proportion in which the raising 
such a sum will fall, I make the following calculation. 

Pennsylvania contains three hundred and seventy-five thousand 
inhabitants, men, women and children ; which is likewise an eighth 
of the number of inhabitants of the whole United States : there- 
fore, two hundred and fifty thousand pounds sterling to be raised 
among three hundred and seventy-five thousand persons, is, on an 
average, thirteen shillings and four pence per head, per annum, or 
something more than one shilling sterling per month. And our 
proportion of three quarters of a million for the government of 
the country, in time of peace, will be ninety-three thousand seven 
hundred and fifty pounds sterling ; fifty thousand of which will be 
for the government expenses of the state, and forty-three thou- 
sand seven hundred and fifty pounds for continental expenses 
at home and abroad. 

The peace establishment then will, on an average, be five 
shillings sterling per head. Whereas, was England now to stop, 
and the war cease, her peace establishment would continue the 
same as it is now, viz. forty shillings per head ; therefore was our 
taxes necessary for carrying on the war, as much per head as hers 
now is, and the difference to be only whether we should, at the 
end of the war, pay at the rate of five shillings per head, or fortv 




204 THE CRISIS. 

shillings per head, the case needs no thinking of. But as we 
can securely defend and keep the country for one third less than 
what our burden would be if it was conquered, and support the 
governments afterwards for one eighth of what Britain would levy 
on us, and could I find a miser whose heart never felt the emotion 
of a spark of principle, even that man, uninfluenced by every love 
but the love of money, and capable of no attachment but to his 
interest, would and must, from the frugality which governs him, 
contribute to the defence of the country, or he ceases to be a 
miser and becomes an ideot. But when we take in with it every 
thing that can ornament mankind ; when the line of our interest 
becomes the line of our happiness ; when all that can cheer and 
animate the heart ; when a sense of honor, fame, character, at 
home and abroad, are interwoven not only with the security but 
the increase of property, there exists not a man in America, unless 
he be an hired emissary, who does not see that his good is connect- 
ed with keeping up a sufficient defence. 

I do not imagine that an instance can be produced in the world, 
of a country putting herself to such an amazing charge to 
conquer and enslave another, as Britain has done. The sum 
is too great for her to think of with any tolerable degree of 
temper ; and when we consider the burden she sustains, as well as 
the disposition she has shown, it would be the height of folly in us 
to suppose that she would not reimburse herself by the most rapid 
means, had she America once more within her power. With such 
an oppression of expense, what would an empty conquest be to 
her ! What relief under such circumstances could she derive from 
a victory without a prize ? It was money, it was revenue she first 
went to war for, and nothing but that would satisfy her. It is not 
the nature of avarice to be satisfied with any thing else. Every 
passion that acts upon mankind has a peculiar mode of opera- 
tion. Many of them are temporary and fluctuating; they admit 
of cessation and variety. But avarice is a fixed, uniform passion. 
It neither abates of its vigor nor changes its object ; and the rea- 
son why it does not, is founded in the nature of things, for wealth 
has not a rival where avarice is a ruling passion. One beauty 
may excel another, and extinguish from the mind of man the pic- 
tured remembrance of a former one : but wealth is the phoenix of 
avarice, and therefore cannot seek a new object, because there is 
Dot another in the world. 



THE CRISIS. 205 

I now pass on to show the value of the present taxes, and com- 
pare them with the annual expense ; but this I shall preface with a 
few explanatory remarks. 

There are two distinct things which make the payment of taxes 
difficult ; the one is the large and real value of the sum to be paid, 
and the other is the scarcity of the thing in which the payment is 
to be made ; and although these appear to be one and the same, 
they are in several instances not only different, but the difficulty 
springs from different causes. 

Suppose a tax to be laid equal to one half of what a man's 
yearly income is, such a tax could not be paid, because the pro- 
perty could not be spared ; and on the other hand, suppose a 
very trifling tax was laid, to be collected in pearls, such a tax like- 
wise could not be paid, because they could not be had. Now any 
person may see that these are distinct cases, and the latter of 
them is a representation of our own. 

That the difficulty cannot proceed from the former, that is, from 
the real value or weight of the tax, is evident at the first view to 
any person who will consider it. 

The amount of the quota of taxes for this state, for the present 
year, 1780, (and so in proportion for every other state) is twenty 
millions of dollars, which, at seventy for one, is but sixty-four 
thousand two hundred and eighty pounds three shillings sterling, 
and on an average, is no more than three shillings and fivepence 
sterling per head, per annum, per man, woman and child, or three- 
pence two-fifths per head per month. Now here is a clear, 
positive fact, that cannot be contradicted, and which proves that 
the difficulty cannot be in the weight of the tax, for in itself it is a 
trifle, and far from being adequate to our quota of the expense of 
the war. The quit-rents of one penny sterling per acre on only 
one half of the state, come to upwards of fifty thousand pounds, 
which is almost as much as all the taxes of the present year, and 
as those quit-rents made no part of the taxes then paid, and are 
now discontinued, the quantity of money drawn for public service 
this year, exclusive of the militia fines, which I shall take notice 
of in the process of this work, is less than what was paid and pay- 
able in any year preceding the revolution, and since the last war : 
what I mean is, that the quit-rents and taxes taken together came 
to a larger sum then, than the present taxes without the quit-rents 
do now. 






206 THE CRISIS. 

My intention by these arguments and calculations is to place the 
difficulty to the right cause, and show that it does not proceed 
from the weight or worth of the tax, but from the scarcity of the 
medium in which it is paid ; and to illustrate this point still fur- 
ther, I shall now show, that if the tax of twenty millions of dollars 
was of four times the real value it now is, or nearly so, which 
would be about two hundred and fifty thousand pounds sterling, 
and would be our full quota, this sum would have been raised with 
more ease, and have been less felt, than the present sum of only 
sixty-four thousand two hundred and eighty pounds. 

The convenience or inconvenience of paying a tax in money 
arises from the quantity of money that can be spared out of trade. 

When the emissions stopped, the continent was left in posses- 
sion of two hundred millions of dollars, perhaps as equally dis- 
persed as it was possible for trade to do it. And as no more was 
to be issued, the rise or fall of prices could neither increase nor 
diminish the quantity. It therefore remained the same through 
all the fluctuations of trade and exchange. 

Now had the exchange stood at twenty for one, which was the 
rate congress calculated upon when they arranged the quota of the 
several states, the latter end of last year, trade would have been 
carried on for nearly four times less money than it is now, and 
consequently the twenty millions would have been spared with 
much greater ease, and when collected would have been of almost 
four times the value that they now are. And on the other hand, 
was the depreciation to be ninety or one hundred for one, the 
quantity required for trade would be more than at sixty or seventy 
for one, and though the value of them would be less, the difficulty 
of sparing the money out of trade would be greater. And on 
these facts and arguments I rest the matter, to prove that it is not 
the want of property, but the scarcity of the medium by which the 
proportion of property for taxation is to be measured out, that 
makes the embarrassment which we lie under. There is not 
money enough, and, what is equally as true, the people will not let 
there be money enough. 

While I am on the subject of the currency, I shall offer one re- 
mark which will appear true to every body, and can be accounted 
for by nobody, which is, that the better the times were, the worse 
the money grew ; and the worse the times were, the better the 
money stood. It never depreciated by any advantage obtained 



THE CRISIS. 207 

by the enemy. The troubles of 1776, and the loss of Philadel- 
phia in 1 777, made no sensible impression on it, and every one 
knows that the surrender of Charleston did not produce the least 
alteration in the rate of exchange, which, for long before, and for 
more than three months after, stood at sixty for one. It seems as 
if the certainty of its being our own, made us careless of its value, 
and that the most distant thoughts of losing it made us hug it the 
closer, like something we were loth to part with ; or that we de- 
preciate it for our pastime, which, when called to seriousness by 
the enemy, we leave off to renew again at our leisure. In short, 
our good luck seems to break us, and our bad makes us whole. 

Passing on from this digression, I shall now endeavor to bring 
into one view the several parts which I have already stated, and 
form thereon some propositions, and conclude. 

I have placed before the reader, the average tax per head, paid 
by the people of England ; which is forty shillings sterling. 

And I have shown the rate on an average per head, which will 
defray all the expenses of the war to us, and support the several 
governments without running the country into debt, which is thir- 
teen shillings and fourpence. 

I have shown what the peace establishment may be conducted 
for, viz. an eighth part of what it would be, if under the govern- 
ment of Britain. 

And I have likewise shown what the average per head of the 
present taxes are, namely, three shillings and fivepence sterling, 
or threepence two-fifths per month ; and that their whole yearly 
value, in sterling, is only sixty-four thousand two hundred and 
eighty pounds. Whereas our quota, to keep the payments equal 
with the expenses, is two hundred and fifty thousand pounds. 
Consequently, there is a deficiency of one hundred and eighty-five 
thousand seven hundred and twenty pounds, and the same pro- 
portion of defect, according to the several quotas, happens in every 
other state. And this defect is the cause why the army has been 
so indifferently fed, clothed and paid. It is the cause, likewise, 
of the nerveless state of the campaign, and the insecurity of the 
country. Now, if a tax equal to thirteen and fourpence per head, 
will remove all these difficulties, and make people secure in their 
homes, leave them to follow the business of their stores and farms 
unmolested, and not only keep out, but drive out the enemy from 
the country ; and if the neglect of raising this sum will let them 



208 THE CRISIS. 

in, and produce the evils which might be prevented — on which 
side, I ask, does the wisdom, interest and policy lie ? Or, rather, 
would it not be an insult to reason, to put the question 1 The sum 
when proportioned out according to the several abilities of the 
people, can hurt no one, but an inroad from the enemy ruins 
hundreds of families. 

Look at the destruction done in this city. The many houses 
totally destroyed, and others damaged ; the waste of fences in the 
country round it, besides the plunder of furniture, forage, and 
provisions. I do not suppose that half a million sterling would 
reinstate the sufferers ; and, does this, I ask, bear any proportion 
to the expense that would make us secure. The damage, on an 
average, is at least ten pounds sterling per head, which is as much 
as thirteen shillings and fourpence per head comes to for fifteen 
years. The same has happened on the frontiers, and in the Jer- 
seys, New- York, and other places where the enemy has been — 
Carolina and Georgia are likewise suffering the same fate. 

That the people generally do not understand the insufficiency 
of the taxes to carry on the war, is evident, not only from com- 
mon observation, but from the construction of several peti- 
tions, which were presented to the assembly of this state, against 
the recommendation of congress of the 18th of March last, for 
taking up and funding the present currency at forty for one, and 
issuing new money in its stead. The prayer of the petition was, 
that the currency might be appreciated by taxes (meaning the pre- 
sent taxes) and that part of the taxes be applied to the support of 
the army, if the army could not be othenvise supported. Now it 
could not have been possible for such a petition to have been pre- 
sented, had the petitioners known, that so far from part of the 
taxes being sufficient for the support of the army, the whole of them 
falls three- fourths short of the year's expenses. 

Before I proceed to propose methods by which a sufficiency ot 
money may be raised, I shall take a short view of the general state 
of the country. 

Notwithstanding the weight of the war, the ravages of the 
enemy, and the obstructions she has thrown in the way of trade 
and commerce, so soon does a young country outgrow misfor- 
tune, that America has already surmounted many that heavily 
oppressed her. For the first year or two of the war, we were shut 
up within our ports, scarce venturing to look towards the ocean* 



THE CRISIS. 209 

Now our rivers are beautified with large and valuable vessels, our 
stores filled with merchandize, and the produce of the country has 
a ready market, and an advantageous price. Gold and silver, 
that for a while seemed to have retreated again within the bowels 
of the earth, have once more risen into circulation, and every day 
adds new strength to trade, commerce and agriculture. In a 
pamphlet, written by Sir John Dalrymple, and dispeised in Ameri- 
ca in the year 1775, he asserted, that, two twenty-gun ships, nay, 
says he, tenders of those ships, stationed between Albemarle sound 
and Chesapeake bay, would shut up the trade of America for 600 
miles. How little did Sir John Dalrymple know of the abilities 
of America ! 

While under the government of Britain, the trade ot this country 
was loaded with restrictions. It was only a few foreign ports 
which we were allowed to sail to. Now it is otherwise ; and al- 
lowing that the quantity of trade is but half what it was before the 
war, the case must show the vast advantage of an open trade, 
because the present quantity under her restrictions could not sup- 
port itself; from which I infer, that if half the quantity without the 
restrictions can bear itself up nearly, if not quite, as well as the 
whole when subject to them, how prosperous must the condition 
of America be when the whole shall return open with all the world. 
By the trade I do not mean the employment of a merchant only, 
but the whole interest and business of the country taken collec- 
tively. 

It is not so much my intention, by this publication, to propose 
particular plans for raising money, as it is to show the necessity 
and the advantages to be derived from it. My principal design is 
to form the disposition of the people to the measures which I am 
fully persuaded it is their interest and duty to adopt, and which 
needs no other force to accomplish them than the force of being 
felt. But as every hint may be useful, I shall throw out a sketch, 
and leave others to make such improvements upon it as to them 
may appear reasonable. 

The annual sum wanted is two millions, and the average rate 
m which it falls, is thirteen shillings and fourpence per head. 

Suppose, then, that we raise half the sum and sixty thousand 
pounds over. The average rate thereof will be seven shilling* 
per head. 

vol j, 27 



210 THE CRISIS. 

In this case we shall have half the supply that we want, and an 
annual fund of sixty thousand pounds whereon to horrow the 
other million ; because sixty thousand pounds is the interest of a 
million at six per cent. ; and if at the end of another year we should 
be obliged, by the continuance of the war, to borrow another 
million, the taxes will be increased to seven shillings and six 
pence ; and thus for every million borrowed, an additional tax, 
equal to sixpence per head, must be levied. 

The sum to be raised next year will be one million and sixty 
thousand pounds : one half of which I would propose should be 
raised by duties on imported goods, and prize goods, and the 
other half by a tax on landed property and houses, or such other 
means as each state may devise. 

But as the duties on imports and prize goods must be the same 
in all the states, therefore the rate per cent., or what other form 
the duty shall be laid, must be ascertained and regulated by con- 
gress, and ingrafted in that form into the law of each state : and 
the monies arising therefrom carried into the treasury of each state. 
The duties to be paid in gold or silver. 

There are many reasons why a duty on imports is the most 
convenient duty or tax that can be collected ; one of which is, be- 
cause the whole is payable in a few places in a country, and it 
likewise operates with the greatest ease and equality, because as 
every one pays in proportion to what he consumes, so people in 
general consume in proportion to what they can afford, and there- 
fore the tax is regulated by the abilities which every man supposes 
himself to have, or in other words, every man becomes his own 
assessor, and pays by a little at a time, when it suits him to buy. 
Besides, it is a tax which people may pay or let alone by not con- 
suming the articles ; and though the alternative may have no 
influence on their conduct, the power of choosing is an agreeable 
thing to the mind. For my own part, it would be a satisfaction to 
me, was there a duty on all sorts of liquors during the war, as in 
my idea of things it would be an addition to the pleasures of 
society, to know, that when the health of the army goes round, a 
few drops from every glass become theirs. How often have I 
heard an emphatical wish, almost accompanied with a tear, " 0/z, 
that our poor fellows in the field had some of this ! " Why then 
need we suffer under a fruitless sympathy, when there is a way to 
enjoy both the wish and the entertainment at once. 



THE CRISIS. 211 

But the great national policy of putting a duty upon imports is, 
that it either keeps the foreign trade in our own hands, or draws 
something for the defence of the country from every foreigner 
who participates it with us. 

Thus much for the first half of the taxes, and as each state will 
devise means to raise the other half, I shall confine my 
remarks to the resources of this state. 

The quota, then, of this state, of one million and sixty thousand 
pound*, will be one hundred and thirty-three thousand two hun- 
llld fifty pounds, the half of which is sixty-six thousand six 
red und twenty-five pounds ; and supposing one fourth part 
Ivania inhabited, then a tax of one bushel of wheat on 
twenty acres of land, one with another, would produce the 
sum, and all the present taxes to cease. Whereas, the tithes of 
the bishops and clergy in England, exclusive of the taxes, are up- 
wards of half a bushel of wheat on every single acre of land, good 
und bad, throughout the nation. 

In the former part of this paper, 1 mentioned the militia fines, 
but reserved speaking to the matter, which I shall now do. The 
ground I shall put it upon is, that two millions sterling a year will 
support a sufficient army, and all the expenses of war and govern- 
ment, without having recourse to the inconvenient method of 
continually calling men from their employments, which, of all 
others, is the most expensive and the least substantial. I consider 
the icvenues created by taxes as the first and principal thing, and 
lines only as secondary and accidental things. It was not the 
intention of the militia law to apply the fines to any thing else but 
the support of the militia, neither do they produce any revenue to 
the state, yet these lines amount to more than all the taxes : for 
taking the muster-roll to be sixty thousand men, the fine on forty 
thousand who may not attend, will be sixty thousand pounds 
sterling, and those who muster, will give up a portion of time 
equal to half that sum, and if the eight classes should be called 
within the year, and one third turn out, the fine on the remaining 
forty thousand would amount to seventy-two millions of dollars, 
besides the fifteen shillings on every hundred pounds of property, 
and the charge of seven and a half per cent, for collecting, in cer- 
tain instances, which, on the whole, would be upwards of two 
hundred and fifty thousand pounds sterling. 



212 THE CRISIS. 

Now if those very fines disable the country from raising a 
sufficient revenue without producing an equivalent advantage, 
would it not be for the ease and interest of all parties to increase 
the revenue, in the manner I have proposed, or any better, if a 
better can be devised, and cease the operation of the fines 1 I 
would still keep the militia as an organized body of men, and 
should there be a real necessity to call them forth, pay them out of 
the proper revenues of the state, and increase the taxes a third or 
fourth per cent, on those who do not attend. My limits will not 
allow me to go further into this matter, which I shall therefore 
close with this remark ; that fines are, of all modes of revenue, 
the most unsuited to the minds of a free country. When a man 
pays a tax, he knows that the public necessity requires it, and 
therefore feels a pride in discharging his duty ; but a fine seems 
an atonement for neglect of duty, and of consequence is paid with 
discredit, and frequently levied with severity. 

I have now only one subject more to speak of, with which I 
shall conclude, which is, the resolve of congress of the 18th of 
March last, for taking up and funding the present currency at 
forty for one, and issuing new money in its stead. 

Every one knows that I am not the flatterer of congress, but in 
this instance they are right ; and if that measure is supported, the 
currency will acquire a value, which, without it, it will not. Bu* 
this is not all : it will give relief to the finances until such time as 
they can be properly arranged, and save the country from being 
immediately double taxed under the present mode. In short, 
support that measure, and it will support you. 

I have now waded through a tedious course of difficult business, 
and over an untrodden path. The subject, on every point in 
which it could be viewed, was entangled with perplexities, and 
enveloped in obscurity, yet such are the resources of America, 
that she wants nothing but system to secure success. 

COMMON SENSE. 
Philadelphia, Oct 6, 1780. 



THE CRISIS. 



NO. XI. 



ON THE KING OF ENGLAND'S SPEECH. 

Of all the innocent passions which actuate the human mind, 
there is none more universally prevalent than curiosity. It 
reaches all mankind, and in matters which concern us, or concern 
us not, it alike provokes in us a desire to know them. 

Although the situation of America, superior to every effort to 
enslave her, and daily rising to importance and opulence, hath 
placed her above the region of anxiety, it has still left her within 
the circle of curiosity ; and her fancy to see the speech of a man 
who had proudly threatened to bring her to his feet, was visibly 
marked with that tranquil confidence which cared nothing about 
its contents. It was inquired after with a smile, read with a laugh, 
and dismissed with disdain. 

But, as justice is due, even to an enemy, it is right to say, that 
the speech is as well managed as the embarrassed condition of 
their affairs could well admit of ; and though hardly a line of it is 
true, except the mournful story of Cornwallis, it may serve to> 
amuse the deluded commons and people of England, for whom it 
was calculated. 

" The war," says the speech, " is still unhappily prolonged 
by that restless ambition which first excited our enemies to 
commence it, and which still continues to disappoint my earnest 
wishes and diligent exertions to restore the public tranquillity." 



214 THE CRISIS. 

How easy it is to abuse truth and language, when men, by ha- 
bitual wickedness, have learned to set justice at defiance. That 
the very man who began the war, who with the most sullen inso- 
lence refused to answer, and even to hear the humblest of all 
petitions, who hath encouraged his officers and his army in the 
most savage cruelties, and the most scandalous plunderings, who 
hath stirred up the Indians on one side, and the negroes on the 
other, and invoked every aid of hell in his behalf, should now, 
with an affected air of pity, turn the tables from himself, and 
charge to another the wickedness that is his own, can only be 
equalled by the baseness of the heart that spoke it. 

To be nobly wrong is more manly than to be meanly right, is 
an expression I once used on a former occasion, and it is equally 
applicable now. We feel something like respect for consistency 
even in error. We lament the virtue that is debauched into a 
vice, but the vice that affects a virtue becomes the more detest- 
able : and amongst the various assumptions of character, which 
hypocrisy has taught, and men have practised, there is none that 
raises a higher relish of disgust, than to see disappointed invete- 
racy twisting itself, by the most visible falsehoods, into an ap- 
pearance of piety which it has no pretensions to. 

" But I should not," continues the speech, " answer the trust 
committed to the sovereign of a free people, nor make a suitable 
return to my subjects for their constant, zealous, and affectionate 
attachment to my person, family and government, if I consented 
to sacrifice, either to my own desire of peace, or to their tempo- 
rary ease and relief, those essential rights and permanent interests, 
upon the maintenance and preservation of which, the future 
strength and security of this country must principally depend." 

That the man whose ignorance and obstinacy first involved 
and still continues the nation in the most hopeless and expensive 
of all wars, should now meanly flatter them with the name of a 
free people, and make a merit of his crime, under the disguise of 
their essential rights and permanent interests, is something which 
disgraces even the character of perverseness. Is he afraid they 
will send him to Hanover, or what does he fear ? Why is the 
sycophant thus added to the hypocrite, and the man who pretends 
to govern, sunk into the humble and submissive memorialist ] 

What those essential rights and permanent interests are, on 
which the future strength and security of England must princi- 



THE CRISIS. 215 

pally depend, are not so much as alluded to. They are, words 
which impress nothing but the ear, and are calculated only for the 
sound. 

But if they have any reference to America, then do they 
amount to the disgraceful confession, that England, who once as- 
sumed to be her protectress, has now become her dependant. 
The British king and ministry are constantly holding up the vast 
importance which America is of to England, in order to allure 
the nation to carry on the war : now, whatever ground there is for 
/his idea, it ought to have operated as a reason for not beginning 
it ; and, therefore, they support their present measures to their 
own disgrace, because the arguments which they now use, are o 
direct reflection on their former policy. 

" The favorable appearance of affairs," continues the speech, 
11 in the East Indies, and the safe arrival of the numerous com- 
mercial fleets of my kingdom, must have given you satisfaction.'* 

That things are not quite so bad every where as in America 
may be some cause of consolation, but can be none for triumph. 
One broken leg is better than two, but still it is not a source of 
joy : and let the appearance of affairs in the East Indies be ever 
so favorable, they are nevertheless worse than at first, without a 
prospect of their ever being better. But the mournful story of 
Cornwallis was yet to be told, and it was necessary to give it the 
softest introduction possible. 

u But in the course of this year," continues the speech, "my 
assiduous endeavors to guard the extensive dominions of my 
crown have not been attended with success equal to the justice 
and uprightness of my views." — What justice and uprightness 
there was in beginning a war with America, the world will judge 
of, and the unequalled barbarity with which it has been conducted, 
is not to be worn from the memory by the cant of snivelling 
hypocrisy. 

" And it is with great concern that I inform you that the 
events of war have been very unfortunate to my arms in Virginia, 
having ended in the loss of my forces in that province."- — And 
our great concern is that they are not all served in the same 
manner. 

" No endeavors have been wanting on my part," says the 
speech, " to extinguish that spirit of rebellion which our enemies 
have found means to foment and maintain in the colonies : and to 



216 THE CRISIS. 

restore to my deluded subjects in America that happy and pros- 
perous condition which they formerly derived from a due obe- 
dience to the laws." 

The expression of deluded subjects is become so hacknied and 
contemptible, and the more so when we see them making prison- 
ers of whole armies at a time, that the pride of not being laughed 
at would induce a man of common sense to leave it off. But 
the most offensive falsehood in the paragraph, is the attributing 
the prosperity of America to a wrong cause. It was the unre- 
mitted industry of the settlers and their descendants, the hard 
labor and toil of persevering fortitude, that were the true causes 
of the prosperity of America. The former tyranny of England 
served to people it, and the virtue of the adventurers to improve 
it. Ask the man, who, with his axe hath cleared a way in the 
wilderness, and now possesses an estate, what made him rich, 
and he will tell you the labor of his hands, the sweat of his brow, 
and the blessing of heaven. Let Britain but leave America to 
herself and she asks no more. She has risen into greatness 
without the knowledge and against the will of England, and has 
a right to the unmolested enjoyment of her own created wealth. 

" I will order," says the speech, " the estimates of the ensuing 
year to be laid before you. I rely on your wisdom and public 
spirit for such supplies as the circumstances of our affairs shall 
be found to require. Among the many ill consequences which 
attend the continuation of the present war, I most sincerely re- 
gret the additional burdens which it must unavoidably bring upon 
my faithful subjects.'' 

It is strange that a nation must run through such a labyrinth of 
trouble, and expend such a mass of wealth to gain the wisdom 
which an hour's reflection might have taught. The final supe- 
riority of America over every attempt that an island might make 
to conquer her, was as naturally marked in the constitution of 
things, as the future ability of a giant over a dwarf is delineated 
in his features while an infant. How far providence, to accom- 
plish purposes which no human wisdom could foresee, permitted 
such extraordinary errors, is still a secret in the womb of time, 
and must remain so till futurity shall give it birth. 

" In the prosecution of this great and important contest," says 
the speech, " in which we are engaged, I retain a firm confidence 
in the protection of divine providence, and a perfect conviction in 



THE CRISIS. 217 

the justice of my cause, and I have no doubt, but, that by the 
concurrence and support of ray parliament, by the valour of my 
fleets and armies, and by a vigorous, animated, and united exer- 
tion of the faculties and resources of my people, I shall be en- 
abled to restore the blessings of a safe and honorable peace to 
al 1 my dominions." 

The king of England is one of the readiest believers in the 
world. In the beginning of the contest he passed an act to put 
America out of the protection of the crown of England, and 
though providence, for seven years together, hath put him out of 
her protection, still the man has no doubt. Like Pharaoh on the 
edge of the Red sea, he sees not the plunge he is making, and 
precipitately drives across the flood that is closing over his head. 

I think it is a reasonable supposition, that this part of the 
speech was composed before the arrival of the news of the cap- 
ture of Cornwallis : for it certainly has no relation to their con- 
dition at the time it was spoken. But, be this as it may, it is 
nothing to us. Our line is fixed. Our lot is cast ; and America, 
the child of fate, is arriving at maturity. We have nothing to do 
but by a spirited and quick exertion, to stand prepared for war or 
peace. Too great to yield, and too noble to insult ; superior to 
misfortune, and generous in success, let us untaintedly preserve 
the character which we have gained, and show to future ages an 
example of unequalled magnanimity. There is something in the 
cause and consequence of America that has drawn on her the 
attention of all mankind. The world has seen her brave. Her 
love of liberty ; her ardour in supporting it ; the justice of her 
claims, and the constancy of her fortitude has won her the esteem 
of Europe, and attached to her interest the first power in that 
country. 

Her situation now is such, that to whatever point, past, present 
or to come, she casts her eyes, new matter rises to convince her 
that she is right. In her conduct towards her enemy, no re- 
proachful sentiment lurks in secret. No sense of injustice is 
left upon the mind. Untainted with ambition, and a stranger to 
revenge, her progress hath been marked by providence, and she, 
in every stage of the conflict, has blest her with success, 

But let not America wrap herself up in delusive hope and sup- 
pose the business done. The least remissness in preparation, 
the least relaxation in execution, will only serve to prolong the 

vol. i 2S 



218 THE CRISIS. 

war, and incvease expenses. If our enemies can draw consola- 
tion from misfortune, and exert themselves upon despair, how 
much more ought we, who are to win a continent by the conquest, 
and have already an earnest of success 1 

Having, in the preceding part, made my remarks on the seve- 
ral matters which the speech contains, I shall now make my re- 
marks on what it does not contain. 

There is not a syllable in it respecting alliances. Either the 
injustice of Britain is too glaring, or her condition too desperate, 
or both, for any neighboring power to come to her support. In 
the beginning of the contest, when she had only America to con- 
tend with, she hired assistance from Hesse, and other smaller 
states of Germany, and for nearly three years did America, 
young, raw, undisciplined and unprovided, stand against the 
power of Britain, aided by twenty thousand foreign troops, and 
made a complete conquest of one entire army. The remem- 
brance of those things ought to inspire us with confidence and 
greatness of mind, and carry us through every remaining difficul- 
ty with content and cheerfulness. What are the little sufferings 
of the present day, compared with the hardships that are past ? 
There was a time, when we had neither house nor home in safety ; 
when every hour was the hour of alarm and danger ; when the 
mind, tortured with anxiety, knew no repose, and every thing but 
hope and fortitude, was bidding us farewell. 

It is of use to look back upon these things ; to call to mind 
the times of trouble and the scenes of complicated anguish that 
are past and gone. Then every expense was cheap, compared 
with the dread of conquest and the misery of submission. We 
did not stand debating upon trifles, or contending about the ne- 
cessary and unavoidable charges of defence. Every one bore 
his lot of suffering, and looked forward to happier days, and 
scenes of rest. 

Perhaps one of the greatest dangers which any country can be 
exposed to, arises from a kind of trifling which sometimes steals 
upon the mind, when it supposes the danger past ; and this un- 
safe situation marks at this time the peculiar crisis of America. 
What would she once have given to have known that her con- 
dition at this day should be what it now is 1 And yet we do not 
seem to place a proper value upon it, nor vigorously pursue the 
necessary measures to secure it. We know that we cannot be 



THE CRISIS. 219 

defended, nor yet defend ourselves, without trouble and expense. 
We have no right to expect it ; neither ought we to look for it. 
We are a people, who, in our situation, differ from all the world. 
We form one common floor of public good, and, whatever is our 
charge, it is paid for our own interest and upon our own account. 

Misfortune and experience have now taught us system and 
method ; and the arrangements for carrying on the war are re- 
duced to rule and order. The quotas of the several states are 
ascertained, and I intend in a future publication to show what they 
are, and the necessity as well as the advantages of vigorously 
providing them. 

In the mean time, I shall conclude this paper with an instance 
of British clemency, from Smollett's History of England, vol. xi. 
p. 239, printed in London. It will serve to show how dismal the 
situation of a conquered people is, and that the only security is 
an effectual defence. 

We all know that the Stuart family and the house of Hanover 
opposed each other for the crown of England. The Stuart family 
stood first in the line of succession, but the other was the most 
successful. 

In July, 1745, Charles, the son of the exiled king, landed in 
Scotland, collected a small force, at no time exceeding five or six 
thousand men, and made some attempts to re-establish his claim. 
The late duke of Cumberland, uncle to the present king of Eng- 
land, was sent against him, and on the 16th of April following, 
Charles was totally defeated at Cullodcn, in Scotland. Success 
and power are the only situations in which clemency can be shown, 
and those who are cruel, because they are victorious, can with 
the same facility act any other degenerate character. 

" Immediately after the decisive action at Culloden, the duke 
of Cumberland took possession of Inverness ; where six and 
thirty deserters, convicted by a court martial, were ordered to be 
executed : then he detached several parties to ravage the coun- 
try. One of these apprehended the lady Mackintosh, who was 
sent prisoner to Inverness, plundered her house, and drove away 
her cattle, though her husband was actually in the service of the 
government. The castle of lord Lovat was destroyed. The 
French prisoners were sent to Carlisle and Penrith : Kilmarnock, 
Balmerino, Cromartie, and his son, the lord Macleod, were con- 
veyed by sea to London ; and those of an inferior rank were 



220 THE CRISIS. 

confined in different prisons. The marquis of Tullibardine, to- 
gether with a brother of the earl of Dunmore, and Murray, 
the pretender's secretary, were seized and transported to the 
tower of London, to which the earl of Traquaire had been com- 
mitted on suspicion ; and the eldest son of lord Lovat was impri- 
soned in the castle of Edinburgh. In a word, all the jails in 
Great Britain, from the capital, northwards, were filled with those 
unfortunate captives ; and great numbers of them were crowded 
together in the holds of ships, where they perished in the most de- 
plorable manner, for want of air and exercise. Some rebel chiefs 
escaped in two French frigates that arrived on the coast of Loch- 
aber about the end of April, and engaged three vessels belong- 
ing to his Britannic majesty, which they obliged to retire. Others 
embarked on board a ship on the coast of Buchan, and were con- 
veyed to Norway, from whence they travelled to Sweden. In the 
month of May, the duke of Cumberland advanced with the army 
into the Highlands, as far as fort Augustus, where he encamped ; 
and sent off detachments on all hands, to hunt down the fugitives, 
and lay waste the country with fire and sword. The castles of 
Glengary and Lochiol were plundered and burned ; every house, 
hut, or habitation, met with the same fate, without distinction ; 
and all the cattle and provision were carried off ; the men were 
either shot upon the mountains, like wild beasts, or put to death 
in cold blood, without form of trial ; the women, after having 
seen their husbands and fathers murdered, were subjected to bru- 
tal violation, and then turned out naked, with their children, to 
starve on the barren heaths. One whole family was enclosed in 
a barn, and consumed to ashes. Those ministers of vengeance 
were so alert in the execution of their office, that in a few days 
there was neither house, cottage, man, nor beast, to be seen within 
the compass of fifty miles ; all was ruin, silence, and desolation." 
I have here presented the reader with one of the most shocking 
instances of cruelty ever practised, and I leave it to rest on his 
mind, that he may be fully impressed with a sense of the destruc- 
tion he has escaped, in case Britain had conquered America ; and 
likewise, that he may see and feel the necessity, as well for his 
own personal safety, as for the honor, the interest, and happiness 
of the whole community, to omit or delay no one preparation 
necessary to secure the ground which we so happily stand upon. 



THE CRISIS. 221 



TO THE PEOPLE OF AMERICA. 

On the expenses, arrangements and disbursements for carrying on 
the war, and finishing it with honor and advantage. 

When any necessity or occasion has pointed out the conve- 
nience of addressing the public, I have never made it a considera- 
tion whether the subject was popular or unpopular, but whether it 
was right or wrong ; for that which is right will become popular, 
and that which is wrong, though by mistake it may obtain the cry 
or fashion of the day, will soon lose the power of delusion, and 
sink into disesteem. 

A remarkable instance of this happened in the case of Silas 
Deane ; and I mention this circumstance with the greater ease, 
because the poison of his hypocrisy spread over the whole 
country, and every man, almost without exception, tjiought me 
wrong in opposing him. The best friends I then had, except Mr. 
Laurens, stood at a distance, and this tribute, which is due to his 
constancy, I pay to him with respect, and that the readier, 
because he is not here to hear it. If it reaches him in his im- 
prisonment, it will afford him an agreeable reflection. 

" Jls he rose like a rochet, he would fall like a stick,^ is a meta- 
phor which I applied to Mr. Deane, in the first piece which I 
published respecting him, and he has exactly fulfilled the descrip- 
tion. The credit he so unjustly obtained from the public, he lost 
in almost as short a time. The delusion perished as it fell, and 
he soon saw himself stripped of popular support. His more 
intimate acquaintances began to doubt, and to desert him long 
before he left America, and at his departure, he saw himself the 
object of general suspicion. When he arrived in France, he 
endeavored to effect by treason what he had failed to accomplish 
by fraud. His plans, schemes and projects, together with his 
expectation of being sent to Holland to negotiate a loan of money, 
had all miscarried. He then began traducing and accusing 
America of every crime, which could injure her reputation. 
" That she was a ruined country ; that she only meant to make a 
tool of France, to get what money she could out of her, and then 
to leave her, and accommodate with Britain." Of all which and 
much more, colonel Laurens and myself, when in France, 



222 THE CRISIS. 

informed Dr. Franklin, who had not before heard of it. And to 
complete the character of a traitor, he has, by letters to this 
country since, some of which, in his own hand writing, are now in 
the possession of congress, used every expression and argument 
in his power, to injure the reputation of France, and to advise 
America to renounce her alliance, and surrender up her indepen-. 
dence.* Thus in France he abuses America, and in his letters 
to America he abuses France ; and is endeavoring to create 
disunion between the two countries, by the same arts of double- 
dealing by which he caused dissentions among the commissioners 
in Paris, and distractions in America. But his life has been fraud, 
and his character is that of a plodding, plotting, cringing mercenary,, 
capable of any disguise that suited his purpose. His final detec- 
tion has very happily cleared up those mistakes, and removed that 
uneasiness, which his unprincipled conduct occasioned. Every 
one now sees him in the same light ; for towards friends or 
enemies he acted with the same deception and injustice, and his 
name, like that of Arnold, ought now to be forgotten among us. 
As this is the first time that I have mentioned him since my return 
from France, it is my intention that it shall be the last. From 
this digression, which for several reasons I thought necessary to 
give, I now proceed to the purport of my address. 

I consider the war of America against Britain as the country's 
war, the public's war, or the war of the people in their own behalf, 
for the security of their natural rights, and the protection of their 
own property. It is not the war of congress, the war of the 
assemblies, or the war of government in any line whatever. The 
country first, by a mutual compact, resolved to defend their rights 
and maintain their independence, at the hazard of their lives and 
fortunes, they elected their representatives, by whom they appoint- 
ed their members of congress, and said, act you for us, and we will 
support you. This is the true ground and principle of the war on 
the part of America, and, consequently, there remains nothing to 
do, but for every one to fulfil his obligation. 

* Mr. William Marshall, of this city, formerly a pilot, who had been taken 
at sea and carried to England, and got from thence to France, brought over 
letters from Mr. Deane to America, one of which was directed to " Robert 
Morris, Esq." Mr. Morris sent it unopened to congress, and advised Mr. 
Marshall to deliver the others there, which he did. The letters were of the 
same purport with thoce which have been already published under the signature 
of 3. Deane, to which they had frequent reference. 



THE CRISIS. 223 

It was next to impossible that a new country, engaged in a new 
undertaking, could set off systematically right at first. She saw not 
the extent of the struggle that she was involved in, neither could 
she avoid the beginning. She supposed every step that she took, 
and every resolution which she formed, would bring her enemy to 
reason and close the contest. Those failing, she was forced into 
new measures ; and these, like the former, being fitted to her 
expectations, and failing in their turn, left her continually unpro- 
vided, and without system. The enemy, likewise, was induced to 
prosecute the war, from the temporary expedients we adopted for 
carrying it on. We were continually expecting to see their credit 
exhausted, and they were looking to see our currency fail ; and 
thus, between their watching us, and we them, the hopes of both 
have"been deceived, and the childishness of the expectation has 
served to increase the expense. 

Yet who, through this wilderness of error, has been to blame ? 
Where is the man who can say the fault, in part, has not been his 1 
They were the natural, unavoidable errors of the day. They 
were the errors of a whole country, which nothing but experience 
could detect and time remove. Neither could the circumstances 
of America admit of system, till either the paper currency was 
fixed or laid aside. No calculation of a finance could be made 
on a medium failing without reason, and fluctuating without rule. 

But there is one error which might have been prevented 
and was not ; and as it is not my custom to flatter, but to serve 
mankind, I will speak it freely. It certainly was the duty of 
every assembly on the continent to have known, at all times, 
what was the condition of its treasury, and to have ascertained at 
every period of depreciation, how much the real worth of the taxes 
fell short of their nominal value. This knowledge, which might 
have been easily gained, in the time of it, would have enabled 
them to have kept their constituents well informed, and this is one 
of the greatest duties of representation. They ought to have 
studied and calculated the expenses of the war, the quota of each 
state, and the consequent proportion that would fall on each man's 
property for his defence ; and this must easily have shown to 
them, that a tax of one hundred pounds could not be paid by a 
bushel of apples or an hundred of flour, which was often the case 
two or three years ago. But instead of this, which would have 
been plain and upright dealing, the little line of temporary popu- 



224 THE CRISIS. 

larity, the feather of an hour's duration, was too much pursued ; 
and in this involved condition of things, every state, for the want 
of a little thinking, or a little information, supposed that it sup- 
ported the whole expenses of the war, when in fact it fell, by the 
time the tax was levied and collected, above three-fourths short of 
its own quota. 

Impressed with a sense of the danger to which the country was 
exposed by this lax method of doing business, and the prevailing 
errors of the day, I published, last October was a twelvemonth, 
the Crisis No. X., on the revenues of America, and the yearly 
expense of carrying on the war. My estimation of the latter, 
together with the civil list of congress, and the civil list of the 
several states, was two million pounds sterling, which is . very 
nearly nine millions of dollars. 

Since that time, congress have gone into a calculation, and 
have estimated the expenses of the war department and the civil 
list of congress (exclusive of the civil list of the several govern- 
ments) at eight millions of dollars ; and as the remaining million 
will be fully sufficient for the civil list of the several states, the 
two calculations are exceedingly near each other. 

The sum of eight millions of dollars they have called upon the 
states to furnish, and their quotas are as follows, which I shall 
preface with the resolution itself. 

" By the United States in congress assembled, 

October 30, 1781. 

" Resolved, That the respective states be called upon to furnish 
the treasury of the United States with their quotas of eight millions 
of dollars, for the war department and civil list for the ensuing 
year, to be paid quarterly, in equal proportions, the first payment 
to be made on the first day of April next. 

" Resolved, That a committee consisting of a member from 
each state, be appointed to apportion to the several states the 
quota of the above sum. 

" November 2d. The committee appointed to ascertain the 
proportions of the several states of the monies to be raised for 
the expenses of the ensuing year, report the following resolu- 
tions : 



THE CRISIS. 225 

" That the sum of eight millions of dollars, as required to be 
raised by the resolutions of the 30th of October last, be paid by 
the states in the following proportion : 

New-Hampshire $ 373,598 

Massachusetts 1,307,596 

Rhode Island 216,684 

Connecticut 747,196 

New- York 373,598 

New-Jersey 485,679 

Pennsylvania 1,120,794 

Delaware 112,085 

Maryland 933,996 

Virginia 1,307,594 

North Carolina 622,677 

South Carolina . , 373,598 

Georgia 24,905 

$8,000,000 

" Resolved, That it be recommended to the several states, to 
*ay taxes for raising their quotas of money for the United States, 
separate from those laid for their own particular use." 

On these resolutions I shall offer several remarks. 

1st, On the sum itself, and the ability of the country. 

2d, On the several quotas, and the nature of a union. 
And, 

3d, On the manner of collection and expenditure. 

1st, On the sum itself, and the ability of the country. As I 
know my own calculation is as low as possible, and as the sum 
called for by congress, according to their calculation, agrees very 
nearly therewith, I am sensible it cannot possibly be lower. 
Neither can it be done for that, unless there is ready money to go 
to market with ; and even in that case, it is only by the utmost 
management and economy that it can be made to do. 

By the accounts which were laid before the British parliament 
last spring, it appeared that the charge of only subsisting, that is, 
feeding their army in America, cost annually four million pounds 
sterling, which is very nearly eighteen millions of dollars. Now 
if, for eight millions, we can feed, clothe, arm, provide for, and 
pay an army sufficient for our defence, the very comparison 
shows that the money must be well laid out. 

It may be of some use, either in debate or conversation, to 
attend to the progress of the expenses of an army, because it wil) 
enable us to see on what part any deficiency will fall. 

vol. I. 29 



226 THE CRISIS. 

The first thing is, to feed them and provide for the sick. 

Second, to clothe them. 

Third, to arm and furnish them. 

Fourth, to provide means for removing them from place to 
place. And, 

Fifth, to pay them. 

The first and second are absolutely necessary to them as men. 
The third and fourth are equally as necessary to them as an army. 
And the fifth is their just due. Now if the sum which shall be 
raised should fall short, either by the several acts of the states for 
raising it, or by the manner of collecting it, the deficiency will fall 
on the fifth head, the soldiers' pay, which would be defrauding 
them, and eternally disgracing ourselves. It would be a blot on 
the councils, the country, and the revolution of America, and a 
man would hereafter be ashamed to own that he had any hand 
in it. 

But if the deficiency should be still shorter, it would next fall on 
the fourth head, the means of removing the army from place to 
place ; and, in this case, the army must either stand still where it 
can be of no use, or seize on horses, carts, wagons, or any means 
of transportation which it can lay hold of; and in this instance 
the country suffers. In short, every attempt to do a thing for less 
than it can be done for, is sure to become at last both a loss and 
a dishonor. 

But the country cannot bear it, say some. This has been the 
most expensive doctrine that ever was held out, and cost America 
millions of money for nothing. Can the country bear to be over- 
run, ravaged, and ruined by an enemy ? This will immediately 
follow where defence is wanting, and defence will ever be wanting 
where sufficient revenues are not provided. But this is only one 
part of the folly. The second is, that when the danger comes, 
invited in part by our not preparing against it, we have been 
obliged, in a number of instances, to expend double the sums to 
do that which at first might have been done for half the money. 
But this is not all. A third mischief has been, that grain of all 
sorts, flour, beef, fodder, horses, carts, wagons, or whatever was 
absolutely or immediately wanted, have been taken without pay. 
Now, I ask, why was all this done, but from that extremely weak 
and expensive doctrine, that the countnj could not hear it 1 That 
is, that she could not bear, in the first instance, that which would 



THE CRISIS. 227 

have saved her twice as much at last ; or, in proverbial language, 
that she could not bear to pay a penny to save a pound ; the con- 
sequence of which has been, that she has paid a pound for a 
penny. Why are there so many unpaid certificates in almost 
every man's hands, but from the parsimony of not providing suffi- 
cient revenues ? Besides, the doctrine contradicts itself; because, 
if the whole country cannot bear it, how is it possible that a part 
should ? And yet this has been the case : for those things have 
been had ; and they must be had ; but the misfortune is, that they 
have been obtained in a very unequal manner, and upon expensive 
credit, whereas, with ready money, they might have been purchased 
for half the price, and nobody distressed. 

But there is another thought which ought to strike us, which is, 
now is the army to bear the want of food, clothing and other 
necessaries ? The man who is at home, can turn himself a thou- 
sand ways, and find as many means of ease, convenience or 
relief: but a soldier's life admits of none of those: their wants 
cannot be supplied from themselves : for an army, though it is the 
defence of a state, is at the same time the child of a country, or 
must be provided for in every thing. 

And lastly, The doctrine is false. There are not three millions 
of people in any part of the universe, who live so well, or have 
such a fund of ability as in America. , The income of a common 
laborer, who is industrious, is equal to that of the generality of 
tradesmen in England. In the mercantile line, I have not heard 
of one who could be said to be a bankrupt since the war began, 
and in England they have been without number. In America 
almost every farmer lives on his own lands, and in England not 
one in a hundred does. In short, it seems as if the poverty of that 
country had made them furious, and they were determined to risk 
all to recover all. 

Yet, notwithstanding those advantages on the part of America, 
true it is, that had it not been for the operation of taxes for our 
necessary defence, we had sunk into a state of sloth and poverty : 
for there was more wealth lost by neglecting to till the earth in the 
years 1776, '77, and '78, than the quota of taxes amounts to. 
That which is lost by neglect of this kind, is lost for ever : whereas 
that which is paid, and continues in the country, returns to us 
again ; and at the same time that it provides us with defence, it 
operates not only as a spur, but as a premium to our industry. 



228 THE CRISIS. 

I shall now proceed to the second head, viz, on the several 
quotas, and the nature of a union. 

There was a time when America had no other bond of union, 
than that of common interest and affection. The whole country 
flew to the relief of Boston, and, making her cause their own, par- 
ticipated in her cares and administered to her wants. The fate 
of war, since that day, has carried the calamity in a ten-fold pro- 
portion to the southward ; but in the mean time the union has been 
strengthened by a legal compact of the states, jointly and severally 
ratified, and that which before was choice, or the duty of affection, 
is now likewise the duty of legal obligation. 

The union of America is the foundation-stone of her indepen- 
dence ; the rock on which it is built ; and is something so sacred 
•a her constitution, that we ought to watch every word we speak, 
and every thought we think, that we injure it not, even by mistake. 
When a multitude, extended, or rather scattered, over a continent 
in the manner we were, mutually agree to form one common 
centre whereon the whole shall move, to accomplish a particular 
purpose, all parts must act together and alike, or act not at all, 
and a stoppage in any one is a stoppage of the whole, at least for 
a time. 

Thus the several states have sent representatives to assemble 
together in congress, and they have empowered that body, which 
thus becomes their centre, and are no other than themselves in 
representation, to conduct and manage the war, while their con- 
stituents at home attend to the domestic cares of the country 
their internal legislation, their farms, professions or employments : 
for it is only by reducing complicated things to method and or- 
derly connexion that they can be understood with advantage, or 
pursued with success. Congress, by virtue of this delegation, 
estimates the expense, and apportions it out to the several parts 
of the empire according to their several abilities ; and here the 
debate must end, because each state has already had its voice, 
and the matter has undergone its whole portion of argument, and 
can no more be altered by any particular state, than a law of any 
state, after it has passed, can be altered by any individual. For 
with respect to those things which immediately concern the union, 
and for which the union was purposely established, and is intended 
to secure, each state is to the United States what each individual 
is to the state he lives in. And it is on this grand point, thi* 



THE CRISIS. 229 

movement upon one centre, that our existence as a nation, our 
happiness as a people, and our safety as individuals, depend. 

It may happen that some state or other may be somewhat over 
or under rated, but this cannot be much. The experience which 
has been had upon the matter, has nearly ascertained their several 
abilities. But even in this case, it can only admit of an appeal to 
the United States, but cannot authorise any state to make the 
alteration itself, any more than our internal government can admit 
an individual to do so in the case of an act of assembly ; for if 
one state can do it, then may another do the same, and the instant 
this is done the whole is undone. 

Neither is it supposable that any single state can be a judge oi 
all the comparative reasons which may influence the collective 
body in arranging the quotas of the continent. The circumstan- 
ces of the several stales are frequently varying, occasioned by the 
accidents of war and commerce, and it will often fall upon som9 
to help others, rather beyond what their exact proportion at 
another time might be ; but even this assistance is as naturally 
and politically included in the idea of a union, as that of any par- 
ticular assigned proportion ; because we know not whose turn it 
may be next to want assistance, for which reason that state is the 
wisest which sets the best example. 

Though in matters of bounden duty and reciprocal affection, it 
is rather a degeneracy from the honesty and ardour of the heart to 
admit any thing selfish to partake in the government of our con- 
duct, yet in cases where our duty, our affections, and our interest 
all coincide, it may be of some use to observe their union. The 
United States will become heir to an extensive quantity of vacant 
land, and their several titles to shares and quotas thereof, will 
naturally be adjusted according to their relative quotas, during the 
war, exclusive of that inability which may unfortunately arise to 
any state by the enemy's holding possession of a part ; but as 
this is a cold matter of interest, I pass it by, and proceed to my 
third head, viz. 






230 THE CRISIS* 

ON THE MANNER OF COLLECTION AND EXPENDITURE. 

It hath been our error, as well as our misfortune, to blend the 
affairs of each state, especially. in money matters, with those of 
the United States ; whereas it is our ease, convenience and 
interest, to keep them separate. The expenses of the United 
States for carrying on the war, and the expenses of each state for 
its own domestic government, are distinct things, and to involve 
them is a source of perplexity and a cloak for fraud- I love 
method, because 1 see and am convinced of its beauty and advan • 
tage. It is that which makes all business easy and understood, 
and without which, every thing becomes embarrassed and difficult. 

There are certain powers which the people of each state have 
delegated to their legislative and executive bodies, and there are 
other powers which the people of every state have delegated to 
congress, among which is that of conducting the war, and, conse- 
quently, of managing the expenses attending it ; for how else can 
that be managed, which concerns every state, but by a delegation 
from each 1 When a state has furnished its quota, it has an un- 
doubted right to know how it has been applied, and it is as much 
the duty of congress to inform the state of the one, as it is the 
duty of the state to provide the other. 

In the resolution of congress already recited, it is recommended 
to the several states to lay iaxesfor raising their quotas of money 
for the United States, separate from those laid for their own par 
ticular use. 

This is a most necessary point to be observed, and the distinc 
tion should follow all the way through. They should be levied, 
paid and collected, separately, and kept separate in every instance. 
Neither have the civil officers of any state, or the government of 
that state, the least right to touch that money whicii the people pay 
for the support of their army and the war, any more than congress 
has to touch that which each state raises for its own use. 

This distinction will naturally be followed by another. It will 
occasion every state to examine nicely into the expenses of its 
civil list, and to regulate, reduce, and bring it into better order 
than it has hitherto been ; because the money for that purpose 
must be raised apart, and accounted for to the public separately. 
But while the monies of both were blended, the necessary nicety 






THE CRISIS. 231 

was not observed, and the poor soldier, who ought to have been 
the first, was the last who was thought of. 

Another convenience will be, that the people, by paying the 
taxes separately, will know what they are for ; and will likewise 
know that those which are for the defence of the country will cease 
with the war, or soon after. For although, as I have before ob- 
served, the war is their own, and for the support of their own 
rights and the protection of their own property, yet they have the 
same right to know, that they have to pay, and it is the want of 
not kno'-vino- that is often the cause of dissatisfaction. 

This regulation of keeping the taxes separate has given rise to 
a regulation in the office of finance, by which it is directed, 

" That the receivers shall, at the end of every month, make out 
an exact account of the monies received by them respectively, 
during such month, specifying therein the names of the persons 
from whom the same shall have been received, the dates and the 
sums ; which account they shall respectively cause to be pub- 
lished in one of the newspapers of the state ; to the end that every 
citizen may know how much of the monies collected from him, in 
taxes, is transmitted to the treasury of the United States for the 
support of the war ; and also, that it may be known what monies 
have been at the order of the superintendant of finance. It 
being proper and necessary, that, in a free country, the people 
should be as fully informed of the administration of their affairs 
as the nature of things will admit." 

It is an agreeable thing to see a spirit of order and economy 
taking place, after such a series of errors and difficulties. A 
government or an administration, who means and acts honestly, 
has nothing to fear, and consequently has nothing to conceal ; 
and it would be of use if a monthly or quarterly account was to 
be published, as well of the expenditures as of the receipts. Eight 
millions of dollars must be husbanded with an exceeding deal of 
care to make it do, and, therefore, as the management must be 
reputable, the publication would be serviceable. 

I have heard of petitions which have been presented to the as- 
sembly of this state (and probably the same may have happened in 
other states) praying to have the taxes lowered. Now the only 
way to keep taxes low is, for the United States to have ready 
money to go to market with : and though the taxes to be raised 
for the present year will fall heavy, and there will naturally bo 









232 THE CRISIS. 

some difficulty in paying them, yet the difficulty, in proportion at 
money spreads about the country, will every day grow less, and 
in the end we shall save some millions of dollars by it. We see 
what a bitter, revengeful enemy we have to deal with, and any 
expense is cheap compared to their merciless paw. We have 
seen the unfortunate Carolineans hunted like partridges on the 
mountains, and it is only by providing means for our defence, that 
we shall be kept from the same condition. When we think or 
talk about taxes, we ought to recollect that we lie down in peace 
and sleep in safety ; that we can follow our farms or stores or 
other occupations, in prosperous tranquillity ; and that these ines 
timable blessings are procured to us by the taxes that we pay 
In this view, our taxes are properly our insurance money ; they 
are what we pay to be made safe, and, in strict policy, are the best 
money we can lay out. 

It was my intention to offer some remarks on the impost law of 
five percent, recommended by congress, and to be established as a 
fund for the payment of the loan-office certificates, and other debts 
of the United States ; but I have already extended my piece be- 
yond my intention. And as this fund will make our system of 
finance complete, and is strictly just, and consequently requires 
nothing but honesty to do it, there needs but little to be said 
upon it. 

COMMON SENSE. 
Philadelphia, March 5, 1782. 



THE CRISIS, 
aro. xiz. 



ON THE PRESENT STATE OF NEWS, 

Since the arrival of two, if not three packets, in quick succen. 
•ion, at New-York, from England, a variety of unconnected newt 
has circulated through the country, and afforded as great a variety 
of speculation. 

That something is the matter in the cabinet and councils of our 
enemies, on the other side of the water, is certain — that they have 
run their length of madness, and are under the necessity of 
changing their measures may easily be seen into ; but to what 
this change of measures may amount, or how far it may corres* 
pond with our interest, happiness and duty, is yet uncertain ; and 
from what we have hitherto experienced, we have too much reason 
to suspect them in every thing. 

I do not address this publication so much to the people of 
America as to the British ministry, whoever they may be, for if it 
is their intention to promote any kind of negotiation, it is proper 
they should know beforehand, that the United States have as 
much honor as bravery ; and that they are no more to be seduced 
from their alliance ; that their line of politics is formed and not 
dependant, like that of their enemy, on chance and accident. 

On our part, in order to know, at any time, what the British 
government will do, we have only to find out what they ought not 
to do, and this last will be their conduct. Forever changing and 
forever wrong ; too distant from America to improve in circun> 
stances, and too unwise to forsee them ; scheming without prin* 
ciple, and executing without probability, their whole line G? 

vol i. 39 



.:'. 



234 • THE CRISI8. 

management has hitherto been blunder and baseness. Ever? 
campaign has added to their loss, and every year to their disgrace ; 
till unable to go on, and ashamed to go back, their politics nave 
come to a halt, and all their fine prospects to a halter. 

Could our affections forgive, or humanity forget the wounds 
of an injured country — we might, under the influence of a momen- 
tary oblivion, stand still and laugh. But they are engraven where 
no amusement can conceal them, and of a kind for which there is 
no recompense. Can ye restore to us the beloved dead 1 Can 
ye say to the grave, give up the murdered ? Can ye obliterate 
from our memories those who are no more \ Think not then to 
tamper with our feelings by insidious contrivance, nor suffocate 
our humanity by seducing us to dishonor. 

In March 1780, I published part of the Crisis, No. VIIT., in 
the newspapers, but did not conclude it in the following papers, 
and the remainder has lain by me till the present day. 

There appeared about that time some disposition in the British 
cabinet to cease the further prosecution of the war, and as I had 
formed my opinion that whenever such a design should take 
place, it would be accompanied with a dishonorable proposition 
to America, respecting France, I had suppressed the remainder 
of that number, not to expose the baseness of any such proposi- 
tion. But me arrival of the next news from England, declared 
her determination to go on with the war, and consequently as the 
political object I had then in view was not become a subject, it 
was unnecessary in me to bring it forward, which is the reason it 
was never published. 

The matter which I allude to in the unpublished part, I shall 
now make a quotation of, and apply it as the more enlarged state 
of things, at this day, shall make convenient or necessary. 

It was as follows : 

'* By the speeches which have appeared from the British par^ 
liament, it is easy to perceive to what impolitic and imprudent 
excesses their passions and prejudices have, in every instance, 
carried them during the present war. Provoked at the upright and 
honorable treaty between America and France, they imagined 
that nothing more was necessary to be done to prevent its final 
ratification, than to promise, through the agency of their commis* 
sioners (Carlisle, Eden, and Johnston) a repeal of their once 
offensive acts of parliament. The canity of the conceit, was fcS 



tin pardonable r.s the experiment was impolitic. And so convinc- 
ed cm I of their wrong ideas of America, that I shall not wonder, 
. tLeir last stage of political phrenzy, they propose to her to 
Is her alliance with France, and enter into one with them, 
c. p oposition, should it ever be made, and it has been ai 
- mere than once hinted at in parliament, would discover 
iiion to perfidiousncss, and such disregard of honoi 
Is, as would add the finishing vice to national corrup- 
not mention this to put America on the watch, but to 
put r<iigl&ud on her guard, that she do not, in the looseness ti 
, envelope in disgrace every fragment of reputation."-- 
LOtation. 
f , the complexion of some part of the news which has trans- 
through the New-York papers, it seems probable that thn 
eta in the British politics is beginning to make its ap- 
tnce. I wish it may not ; for that which is a disgrace to 
lure, throws something of a shade over all the human 
. and each individual feels his share of the wound that is 
given to the whole. 

The policy of Britain has ever been to divide America in some 
way or other. In the beginning of the dispute, she practised 
y art to prevent or destroy the union of the states, well know- 
it ^ mat could she once get them to stand singly, she could con- 
quer them unconditionally. Failing in this project in America, 
she renewed it in Europe ; and, after the alliance had taken place, 
she made scent oilers to France to induce her to give up Ameri- 
ca : and what is still more extraordinary, she at the same time 
mad( propositions to Dr. Franklin, then in Paris, the very court 
to which she was secretly applying, to draw off America from 
e. Btrt this is not all. 
On the 14th of September, 1778, the British court, through 
their secretary, lord Weymouth, made application to the marquis 
d'Ahnadovar, the Spanish ambassador at London, to " ask the 
mediation," for these were the words, of the court of Spain, for 
the purpose of negociating a peace with France, leaving Ameri- 
ca (as I shall hereafter shew) out of the question. Spain readily 
offered her mediation, and likewise the city of Madrid as the 
place of conference, but withal, proposed, that the United States 
of America should be invited to the treaty, and considered as in- 
dependent during the time the business was negotiating. But 






006 f tin crmii. 

this was not the view of England. She wanted to draw Franc* 
from the war, that she might uninterruptedly potlr out all h«r force 
and fury upon America ; and being disappointed in this plan, as 
well through the open and generous conduct of Spain, as the 
determination of France, she refused the mediation which she had 
solicited. 

I shall now give some extracts from the justifying memorial of 
the Spanish court, in which she has set the conduct and character 
of Britain, with respect to America, in a clear and striking point 
of light. 

The memorial, speaking of the refusal of the British court to 
meet in conference, with commissioners from the United States, 
who were to be considered as independent during the time of the 
conference, says, 

II It is a thing very extraordinary and even ridiculous, that the 
Court of London, who treats the colonies as independent, not 
only in acting, but of right, during the war, should have a repug- 
nance to treat them as such only in acting during a truce, or sus- 
pension of hostilities. The convention of Saratoga ; the reputing 
general Burgoyne as a lawful prisoner, in order to suspend his 
trial ; the exchange and liberation of other prisoners made from 
the colonies ; the having named commissioners to go and suppli- 
cate the Americans, at their own doors, request peace of them, 
and treat with them and the congress : and, finally, by a thousand 
other acts of this sort, authorized by the court of London, which 
have been, and are true signs of the acknowledgment of their in- 
dependence. 

*' In aggravation of all the foregoing, at the same time the 
British cabinet answered the king of Spain in the terms already 
mentioned, they were insinuating themselves at the court of France 
by means of secret emissaries, and making very great offers to 
her, to abandon the colonies and make peace with England. 
But there is yet more ; for at this same time the English minis- 
try were treating, by means of another certain emissary, with Dr. 
Franklin, minister plenipotentiary from the colonies, residing at 
Paris, to whom they made various proposals to disunite them 
from France, and accommodate matters with England. 

" From what has been observed, it evidently follows, that the 
whole of the British politics was, to disunite the two courts ot 
Paris and Madrid, by means of the suggestions and offers which 



TH1 CRISIS. 237 

site separately made to them ; and also to separate the colonies 
from their treaties and engagements entered into with France, 
and induce them to arm against the house of Bourbon, or more pro- 
bably to oppress them when they found, from breaking their en- 
gagements, that they stood alone and without protection. 

" This* therefore, is the net they laid for the American states ; 
that is to say, to tempt them with flattering and very magnificent 
promises to come to an accommodation with them, exclusive of 
any intervention of Spain or France, that the British ministry 
might always remain the arbiters of the fate of the colonies. 

" But the Catholic king (the king of Spain) faithful on the one 
part of the engagements which bind him to the Most Christian 
king (the king of France) his nephew ; just and upright on the 
other, to his own subjects, whom he ought to protect and guard 
against so many insults ; and finally, full of humanity and com- 
passion for the Americans and other individuals who suffer in the 
present war ; he is determined to pursue and prosecute it, and to 
make all the efforts in his power, until he can obtain a solid and 
permanent peace, with full and satisfactory securities that it shall 
be observed." 

Thus far the memorial ; a translation of which into English, 
may be seen in full, under the head of State Papers, in the Annual 
Register, for 1779, p. 367. 

The extracts I have here given, serve to show the various 
endeavors and contrivances of the enemy, to draw France from 
her connexion with America, and to prevail on her to make a 
separate peace with England, leaving America totally out of the 
question, and at the mercy of a merciless, unprincipled enemy. 
The opinion, likewise, which Spain has formed of the British 
cabinet character, for meanness and perfidiousness, is so exactly 
the opinion of America, respecting it, that the memorial, in this 
instance, contains our own statements and language ; for people, 
however remote, who think alike, will unavoidably speak alike. 

Thus we see the insidious use which Britain endeavoured to 
make of the propositions of peace under the mediation of Spain. 
I shall now proceed to the second proposition under the mediation 
of the emperor of Germany and the empress of Russia ; the 
general outline of which was, that a congress of the several 
powers at war, should meet at Vienna, in 1781, to settle prelimi- 
naries of peace. 



893 TBI CRISIS. 

I could wish myself at liberty to make use of all the ihfor* 
mation which I am possessed of on this subject, but as there is a 
delicacy in the matter, I do not conceive it prudent, at least a. 
present, to make references and quotations in the same manner 
as I have done with respect to the mediation of Spain* who pub- 
lished the whole proceedings herself; and therefore, what comes 
from me, on this part of the business, must rest on my own ere* 
dit with the public, assuring them, that when the whole proceed- 
ings, relative to the proposed congress of Vienna shall appear, 
they will find my account not only true, but studiously moderate. 

We know at the time this mediation was on the carpet, the 
expectation of the British king and ministry ran high with respect 
to the conquest of America. The English packet which was 
taken with the mail on board, and carried into l'Orient, in France, 
contained letters from lord G. Germaine to Sir Henry Clinton, 
which expressed in the fullest terms the ministerial idea of a total 
conquest. Copies of those letters were sent to congress and 
published in the newspapers of last year. Colonel Laurens 
brought over the originals, some of which, signed in the hand 
writing of the then secretary, Germaine, are now in my posses 
sion. 

Filled with these high ideas, nothing could be more insolen 
towards America than the language of the British court on the 
proposed mediation. A peace with France and Spain she anxi 
ously solicited ; but America, as before, was to be left to he 
mercy, neither would she hear any proposition for admitting an 
agent from the United States into the congress of Vienna. 

On the other hand, France, with an open, noble, and manh 
determination, and the fidelity of a good ally, would hear no 
proposition for a separate peace, nor even meet in congress 
at Vienna, without an agent from America : and likewise that the 
independent character of the United States, represented by the 
agent, should be fully and unequivocally defined and settled before 
any conference should be entered on. The reasoning of the 
court of France on the several propositions of the two imperia, 
courts, which relate to us, is rather in the style of an American 
than an ally, and she advocated the cause of America as it sne 
had been America herself. — Thus the second mediation, like the 
first, proved ineffectual. 



THE CRISIS. 239 

But since that time, a reverse of fortune has overtaken the 
British arms, and all their high expectations are dashed to the 
erround. The noble exertions to the southward under general 
Greene ; the successful operations of the allied arms in the 
Chesapeake ; the loss of most of their islands in the West-Indies, 
and Minorca in the Mediterranean ; the persevering spirit of Spain 
against Gibraltar; the expected capture of Jamaica; the failure 
of making a separate peace with Holland, and the expense of an 
hundred millions sterling, by which all these fine losses were 
obtained, have read them a loud lesson of disgraceful misfortune, 
and necessity h;is called on thcin to change their ground. 

In this situation of confusion and despair, their present councils 
have no fixed character. It is now the hurricane months of Bri- 
tish politics. Every day seems to have a storm of its own, and 
they are scudding under the bare poles of hope. Beaten, but 
not humble; condemned, but not penitent; they act like men 
trembling at fate and catching at a straw. From this convulsion, 
in the entrails of their politics, it is more than probable, that the 
mountain groaning in labor, will bring forth a mouse, as to its size, 
and a monster in its make. They will try on America the same 
insidious arts they tried on France and Spain. 

We sometimes experience sensations to which language is not 
equal. The conception is too bulky to be born alive, and in the 
torture of thinking, wo stand dumb. Our feelings, imprisoned by 
their magnitude, find no way out — and, in the struggle of express 
sion, every finger tries to be a tongue. The machinery of the 
body seems too little for the mind, and we look about for helps to 
show our thoughts by. Such must be the sensation of America, 
whenever Britain, teeming with corruption, shall propose to her 
to sacrifice her faith. 

But, exclusive of the wickedness, there is a personal offence 
contained in every such attempt. It is calling us villians : for no 
nian asks another to act the villian unless he believes him inclined 
to be one, No man attempts to seduce a truly honest woman. 
It is the supposed looseness of her mind that starts the thoughts 
of seduction, and he who offers it calls her a prostitute. Our 
pride is always hurt by the same propositions which offend our 
principles ; for when we are shocked at the crinie >ye are wpunch 
e<J by the suspicion of our compliance, 






%iO THB CEIBIf. 



Could I convey a thought that might serve to regulate the pub- 
lic mind, I would not make the interest of the alliance the basis 
of defending it. All the world are moved by interest, and it 
affords them nothing to boast of. But I would go a step higher, 
and defend it on the ground of honour and principle. That our 
public affairs have flourished under the alliance — that it was wise- 
ly made, and has been nobly executed — that by its assistance we 
are enabled to preserve our country from conquest, and expel 
those who sought our destruction — that it is our true interest to 
maintain it unimpaired, and that while we do so no enemy can 
conquer us, are matters which experience has taught us, and the 
common good of ourselves, abstracted from principles of faith and 
honor, would lead us to maintain the connexion. 

But over and above the mere letter of the alliance, we have 
been nobly and generously treated, and have had the same re- 
spect and attention paid to us, as if we had been an old establish- 
ed country. To oblige and be obliged is fair work among man- 
kind, and we want an opportunity of showing to the world that we 
are a people sensible of kindness and worthy of confidence. 
Character is to us, in our present circumstances, of more impor- 
tance than interest. We are a young nation, just stepping upon 
the stage of public life, and the eye of the world is upon us to see 
how we act. We have an enemy who is watching to destroy our 
reputation, and who will go any length to gain some evidence 
against us, that may serve to render our conduct suspected, and 
our character odious ; because, could she accomplish this, wicked 
as it is, the world would withdraw from us, as from a people not 
to be trusted, and our task would then become difficult. 

There is nothing which sets the character of a nation in a higher 
or lower light with others, than the faithfully fulfilling, or perfi- 
diously breaking of treaties. They are things not to be tamper- 
ed with : and should Britain, which seems very probable, propose 
to seduce America into such an act of baseness, it would merit 
from her some mark of unusual detestation. It is one of those 
extraordinary instances in which we ought not to be contented 
with the bare negative of congress, because it is an affront on the 
multitude as well as on the government. It goes on the supposi- 
tion that the public are not honest men, and that they may be 
managed by contrivance, though they cannot be conquered by 
arms, But, let the world and Britain know, that we are neither 



THE CRISIS. 241 

to be bought nor sold. That our mind is great and fixed ; our 
prospect clear ; and that we will support our character as firmly 
as our independence. 

But I will go still further ; general Conway, who made the 
motion, in the British parliament, for discontinuing offensive war in 
America, is a gentleman of an amiable character. Wejiave no 
personal quarrel with him. But he feels not as we feel ; he is 
not in our situation, and that alone, without any other explanation, 
is enough. 

The British parliament suppose they have many friends in 
America, and that, when all chance of conquest is over, they will 
be able to draw her from her alliance with France. Now, if I 
have any conception of the human heart, they will fail in this 
more than in any thing that they have yet tried. 

This part of the business is not a question of policy only, but of 
honor and honesty ; and the proposition will have in it something 
so visibly low and base, that their partisans, if they have any, will 
be ashamed of it. Men are often hurt by a mean action who are 
not startled at a wicked one, and this will be such a confession of 
inability, such a declaration of servile thinking, that the scandal 
of it will ruin all their hopes. 

In short, we have nothing to do but to go on with vigor and 
determination. The enemy is yet in our country. They hold 
New- York, Charleston and Savannah, and the very being in 
those places is an offence, and a part of offensive war, and until 
they can be driven from them, or captured in them, it would 
be folly in us to listen to an idle tale. I take it for granted that 
the British ministry are sinking under the impossibility of carry- 
ing on the war. Let them then come to a fair and open peace 
with France, Spain, Holland and America, in the manner that 
she ought to do ; but until then, we can have nothing to say 
to thern. 

COMMON SENSE. 
Philadelphia, May 22, 1782. 

VOL. I. 31 



THE CRISIS. 



NO. XIII. 



TO SIR GUY CARLETON. 

It is the nature of compassion to associate with misfortune ; 
and I address this to you in behalf even of an enemy, a captain 
in the British service, now on his way to the head-quarters of the 
American army, and unfortunately doomed to death for a crime 
not his own. A sentence so extraordinary, an execution so re- 
pugnant to every human sensation, ought never to be told with- 
out the circumstances which produced it : and as the destined 
victim is yet in existence, and in your hands rest his life or death, 
I shall briefly state the case, and the melancholy consequence. 

Captain Huddy, of the Jersey militia, was attacked in a small 
fort on Tom's River, by a party of refugees in the British pay and 
service, was made prisoner, together with his company, carried to 
New-York and lodged in the provost of that city : about three 
weeks after which, he was taken out of the provost down to the 
water-side, put into a boat, and brought again upon the Jersey 
shore, and there, contrary to the practice of all nations but sa- 
vages, was hung up on a tree, and left hanging till found by our 
people, who took him down and buried him. 

The inhabitants of that part of the country where the murder 
was committed, sent a deputation to general Washington with a 
full and certified statement of the fact. Struck, as every human 
breast must be, with such brutish outrage, and determined both 
to punish and prevent it for the future, the general represented 
the case to general Clinton, who then commanded, and demanded 
that the refugee officer who ordered and attended the execution, 
and whose name is Lippincut, should be delivered up as a mur- 



THE CRISIS. 243 

derer ; and in case of refusal, that the person of some British 
officer should suffer in his stead. The demand, though not re- - 
fused, has not been complied with ; and the melancholy lot (not 
by selection, but by casting lots) has fallen upon captain Asgill, 
of the guards, who, as I have already mentioned, is on his way 
from Lancaster to camp, a martyr to the general wickedness of 
the cause he engaged in, and the ingratitude of those whom he 
served. 

The first reflection which arises on this black business is, what 
sort of men must Englishmen be, and what sort of order and dis- 
cipline do they preserve in their army, when in the immediate 
place of their head-quarters, and under the eye and nose of their 
commander-in-chief, a prisoner can be taken at pleasure from his 
confinement, and his death made a matter of sport. 

The history of the most savage Indians does not produce in- 
stances exactly of this kind. They, at least, have a formality in 
their punishments. With them it is the horridness of revenge, 
but with your army it is a still greater crime, .the horridness of 
diversion. 

The British generals who have succeeded each other, from the 
time of general Gage to yourself, have all affected to speak in 
language that they have no right to. In their proclamations, 
their addresses, their letters to general Washington, and their 
supplications to congress (for they deserve no other name) they 
talk of British honor, British generosity, and British clemency, as 
if those things were matters of fact ; whereas, we whose eyes are 
open, who speak the same language with yourselves, many of 
whom were born on the same spot with you, and who can no 
more be mistaken in your words than in your actions, can de- 
clare to all the world, that so far as our knowledge goes, there is 
not a more detestable character, nor a meaner or more barbarous 
enemy, than the present British one. With us, you have forfeit- 
ed all pretensions to reputation, and it is only holding you like a 
wild beast, afraid of your keepers, that you can be made manage- 
able. But to return to the point in question. 

Though I can think no man innocent who has lent his hand to 
destroy the country which he did not plant, and to ruin those that 
he could not enslave, yet, abstracted from all ideas of right and 
Wrong on the original question, captain Asgill, in the present 
case, is not the guilty man. The villain and the victim are here 



244 THE CRISIS. 

separated characters. You hold the one and we the other. You 
disown, or affect to disown and reprobate the conduct of Lippin- 
cut, yet you give him a sanctuary ; and by so doing you as effec- 
tually become the executioner of Asgill, as if you had put the 
rope on his neck, and dismissed him from the world. Whatever 
your feelings on this interesting occasion may be are best known 
to yourself. Within the grave of our own mind lies buried the 
fate of Asgill. He becomes the corpse of your will, or the sur- 
viver of your justice. Deliver up the one, and you save the 
other ; withhold the one, and the other dies by your choice. 

On our part the case is exceeding plain ; an officer has been 
taken from his confinement and murdered, and the murderer is 
within your lines. Your army has been guilty of a thousand in- 
stances of equal cruelty, but they have been rendered equivocal, 
and sheltered from personal detection. Here the crime is fixed ; 
and is one of those .extraordinary cases which can neither be de- 
nied nor palliated, and to which the custom of war does not ap- 
ply ; for it never could be supposed that such a brutal outrage 
would ever be committed. It is an original in the history of 
civilized barbarians, and is truly British. 

On your part you are accountable to us for the personal safety 
of the prisoners within your walls. Here can be no mistake ; 
they can neither be spies nor suspected as such ; your security is 
not endangered, nor your operations subjected to miscarriage, by 
men immured within a dungeon. They differ in every circum- 
stance from men in the field, and leave no pretence for severity 
of punishment. But if to the dismal condition of captivity with 
you, must be added the constant apprehensions of death ; if to 
be imprisoned is so nearly to be entombed ; and, if after all, the 
murderers are to be protected, and thereby the crime encouraged, 
wherein do you differ from Indians, either in conduct or character? 

We can have no idea of your honor, or your justice, in any 
future transaction, of what nature it may be, while you shelter 
within your lines an outrageous murderer, and sacrifice in his 
stead an officer of your own. If you have no regard to us, at 
least spare the blood which it is your duty to save. Whether 
the punishment will be greater on him, who, in this case, inno- 
cently dies, or on him whom sad necessity forces to retaliate, is, 
in the nicety of sensation, an undecided question ? It rests with 



THE CRISIS. 245 

jou to prevent the sufferings of both. You have nothing to do 
but to give up the murderer, and the matter ends. 

But to protect him, be he who he may, is to patronise his crime, 
and to trifle it off by frivolous and unmeaning inquiries, is to pro- 
mote it. There is no declaration you can make, nor promise 
you can give that will obtain credit. It is the man and not the 
apology that is demanded. 

You see yourself pressed on all sides to spare the life of your 
own officer, for die he will if you withhold justice. The murder 
of captain Huddy is an offence not to be borne with, and there is 
no security which we can have, that such actions or similar ones 
shall not be repeated, but by making the punishment fall upon 
yourselves. To destroy the last security of captivity, and to take 
the unarmed, the unresisting prisoner to private and sportive 
execution, is carrying barbarity too high for silence. The evil 
must be put an end to ; and the choice of persons rests with you. 
But i*" your attachment to the guilty is stronger than to the inno- 
cent, you invent a crime that must destroy your character, and if 
the cause of your king needs to be so supported, for ever cease, 
sir, to torture our remembrance with the wretched phrases of 
British honor, British generosity, and British clemency. 

From this melancholy circumstance, learn, sir, a lesson of 
morality. The refugees are men whom your predecessors have 
instructed in wickedness, the better to fit them to their master's 
purpose. To make them useful, they have made them vile, and 
the consequence of their tutored villany is now descending on 
the heads of their encouragers. They have been trained like 
hounds to the scent of blood, and cherished in every species of 
dissolute barbarity. Their ideas of right and wrong are worn 
away in the constant habitude of repeated infamy, till, like men 
practised in execution, they feel not the value of another's life. 

The task before you, though painful^ is'not difficult ; give up 
the murderer, and save your officer, as the first outset of a neces- 
sary reformation. 

COMMON SENSE. 
Philadelphia, May 31, 1782. 



THE CRISIS. 



UO. XIV. 



TO THE EARL OF SHELBURNE. 

My lord, — A speech, which has been printed in several of the 
British and New- York newspapers, as coming from your lordship. 
in answer to one from the duke of Richmond, of the 10th of 
July last, contains expressions and opinions so new and singular, 
and so enveloped in mysterious reasoning, that I address this 
publication to you, for the purpose of giving them a free and 
candid examination. The speech that I allude to is in these 
words : 

" His lordship said, it had been mentioned in another place, 
that he had been guilty of inconsistency. To clear himself of 
this, he asserted that he still held the same principles in respect 
to American independence which he at first imbibed. He had 
been, and yet was of opinion, whenever the parliament of Great 
Britain acknowledges that point, the sun of England's glory is 
set forever. Such were the sentiments he possessed on a former 
day, and such the sentiments he continued to hold at this hour. 
It was the opinion of lord Chatham, as well as many other able 
statesmen. Other noble lords, however, think differently ; and 
as the majority of the cabinet support them, he acquiesced in the 
measure, dissenting from the idea ; and the point is settled for 
bringing the* matter into the full discussion of parliament, where it 
will be candidly, fairly, and impartially debated. The indepen- 
dence of America would end in the ruin of England ; and that a 



the crisis. 247 

peace patched up with France, would give that proud enemy tbe 
means of yet trampling on this country. The sun of England's 
glory he wished not to see set forever ; he looked for a spark at 
least to be left, which might in time light us up to a new day. 
But if independence was to be granted, if parliament deemed that 
measure prudent, he foresaw, m his own mind, that England was 
undone. He wished to God that he had been deputed to con- 
gress, that he might plead the cause of that country as well as of 
this, and that he might exercise whatever powers he possessed as 
an orator, to save both from ruin, in a conviction to congress, 
that, if their independence was signed, their liberties were gone 
forever. 

" Peace, his lord&hip added, was a desirable object, but it must 
be an honorable peace, and not an humiliating one, dictated by 
France, or insisted on by America. It was very true, that this 
kingdom was not in a flourishing state, it was impoverished by 
war. But if we were not rich, it was evident that France was 
pooi. If we were straitened in our finances, the enemy were 
exhausted in their resources. This was a great empire ; it 
abounded with brave men, who were able and willing to fight in a 
common cause ; the language of humiliation should not, there- 
fore, be the language of Great Britain. His lordship said, that 
he was not afraid nor ashamed of those expressions going to 
America. There were numbers, great numbers there, who were 
of the same way of thinking, in respect to that country being de- 
pendant on this, and who, with his lordship, perceived ruin and 
independence linked together." 

Thus far the speech ; on which I remark — That his lordship 
is a total stranger to the mind and sentiments of America ; that he 
has wrapped himself up in fond delusion, that something less 
than independence, may, under his administration, be accepted ; 
and he wishes himself sent to congress, to prove the most extra- 
ordinary of all doctrines, which is, that independence, the sub- 
limest of all human conditions, is loss of liberty. 

In answer to which wo may say, that in order to know what the 
contrary word dependance means, we have only to look back to 
those years of severe humiliation, when the mildest of all petitions 
could obtain no other notice than the haughtiest of all insults ; 
and when the base terms of unconditional submission were de- 
manded, or uudistinguishable destruction threatened. It is 



248 THE CRISIS. 

nothing to us that the ministry have been changed, for they may 
be changed again. The guilt of a government is the crime of a 
whole country ; and the nation that can, though but for a moment, 
think and act as England has done, can never afterwards be be- 
lieved or trusted. There are cases in which it is as impossible 
to restore character to life, as it is to recover the dead. It is a 
phenix that can expire but once, and from whose ashes there is no 
resurrection. Some offences are of such a slight composition, 
that they reach no further than the temper, and are created or 
cured by a thought. But the sin of England has struck the heart 
of America, and nature has not left in our power to sav we can 
forgive. 

Your lordship wishes for an opportunity to plead before con- 
gress the cause of England and America, and to save, as you say, 
both from ruin. 

That the country, which, for more than seven years has sought 
our destruction, should now cringe to solicit our protection, is 
adding the wretchedness of disgrace to the misery of disappoint- 
ment ; and if England has the least spark of supposed honor left, 
that spark must be darkened by asking, and extinguished by re- 
ceiving, the smallest favor from America ; for the criminal who 
owes his life to the grace and mercy of the injured, is more 
executed by the living, than he who dies. 

But a thousand pleadings, even from your lordship, can have no 
effect. Honor, interest, and every sensation of the heart, would 
plead against you. We are a people who think not as you think ; 
and what is equally true, you cannot feel as we feel. The situa- 
tions of the two countries are exceedingly different. Ours has 
been the seat of war ; yours has seen nothing of it. The most 
wanton destruction has been committed in our sight ; the most 
insolent barbarity has been acted on our feelings. We can look 
round and see the remains of burnt and destroyed houses, once 
the fair fruit of hard industry, and now the striking monuments of 
British brutality. We walk over the dead whom we loved, in 
every part of America, and remember by whom they fell. There 
is scarcely a village but brings to life some melancholy thought, 
and reminds us of what we have suffered, and of those we have 
lost by the inhumanity of Britain. A thousand images arise to 
us, which, from situation, you cannot see, and are accompanied 
by as many ideas which you cannot know ; and therefore your 



THE CRISIS. 249 

supposed system of reasoning would apply to nothing, and all 
your expectations die of themselves. 

The question whether England shall accede to the indepen- 
dence of America, and which your lordship says is to undergo a 
parliamentary discussion, is so very simple, and composed of so 
few cases, that it scarcely needs a debate. 

It is the only way out of an expensive and ruinous war, which 
has no object, and without which acknowledgment there can be 
no peace. 

But your lordship says, the sun of Gi*eai Britain icill set when- 
ever she acknowledges the independence of America. — Whereas 
the metaphor would have been strictly just, to have left the sun 
wholly out of the figure, and have ascribed her not acknowledging 
it to the influence of the moon. 

But the expression, if true, is the greatest confession of dis- 
grace that could be made, and furnishes America with the highest 
notions of sovereign independent importance. Mr. Wedder- 
burne, about the year 1776, made use of an idea of much the 
same kind, — Relinquish America ! says he — What is it but to 
desire a giant to shrink spontaneously into a dwarf 

Alas ! are those people who call themselves Englishmen, of so 
little internal consequence, that when America is gone, or shuts 
her eyes upon them, their sun is set, they can shine no more, but 
grope about in obscurity, and contract into insignificant animals ? 
Was America, then, the giant of the empire, and England only 
her dwarf in waiting 1 Is the case so strangely altered, that those 
who once thought we could not live without them, are now brought 
to declare that they cannot exist without us 1 Will they tell to the 
world, and that from their first minister of state, that America is 
their all in all ; that it is by her importance only that they can live, 
and breathe, and have a being 1 Will they, who long since threat- 
ened to bring us to their feet, bow themselves at ours, and own 
that without us they are not a nation ? Are they become so un- 
qualified to debate on independence, that they have lost all idea of 
it themselves, and are calling to the rocks and mountains of 
America to cover their insignificance 1 Or, if America is lost, is 
it manly to sob over it like a child for its rattle, and invite the 
laughter of the world by declarations of disgrace ? Surely, a 
more consistent line of conduct would be to bear it without com- 
plaint ; and to show that England, without America, can preserve 

vol. i. 32 



250 THE CRISIS* 

her independence, and a suitable rank with other European 
powers. You were not contented while you had her, and to weep 
for her now is childish. 

But lord Shelburne thinks something may yet be done. What 
that something is, or how it is to be accomplished, is a matter in 
obscurity. By arms there is no hope. The experience of nearly 
eight years, with the expense of an hundred million pounds ster- 
ling, and the loss of two armies, must positively decide that point. 
Besides, the British have lost their interest in America with the 
disaffected. Every part of it has been tried. There is no new 
scene left for delusion : and the thousands who have been ruined 
by adhering to them, and have now to quit the settlements which 
they had acquired, and be conveyed like transports to cultivate 
the deserts of Augustine and Nova- Scotia, has put an end to all 
further expectations of aid. 

If you cast your eyes on the people of England, what have 
they to console themselves with for the millions expended ? Or, 
what encouragement is there left to continue throwing good 
money after bad ? America can carry on the war for ten years 
longer, and all the charges of government included, for less than 
you can defray the charges of war and government for one year. 
And I, who know both countries, know well, that the people of 
America can afford to pay their share of the expense much better 
than the people of England can. Besides, it is their own estates 
and property, their own rights, liberties and government, that they 
are defending ; and were they not to do it, they would deserve to 
lose all, and none would pity them. The fault would be their own, 
and their punishment just. 

The British army in America care not how long the war lasts. 
They enjoy an easy and indolent life. They fatten on the folly 
of one country and the spoils of another ; and, between their 
plunder and their pay, may go home rich. But the case is very 
different with the laboring farmer, the working tradesman, and the 
necessitous poor in England, the sweat of whose brow goes day 
after day to feed, in prodigality and sloth, the army that is robbing 
both them and us. Removed from the eye of that country that 
supports them, and distant from the government that employs 
them, they cut and carve for themselves, and there is none to call 
them to account. 



THE CRISIS. 251 

But England will be ruined, says lord Shelburne, if America is 
independent. 

Then, I say, is England already ruined, for America is already 
independent : and if lord Shelburne will not allow this, he imme- 
diately denies the fact which he infers. Besides, to make Eng- 
land the mere creature of America, is paying too great a compli- 
ment to us, and too little to himself. 

But the declaration is a rhapsody of inconsistency. For to 
say, as lord Shelburne has numberless times said, that the war 
against America is ruinous, and yet to continue the prosecution 
of that ruinous war for the purpose of avoiding ruin, is a language 
which cannot be understood. Neither is it possible to see how 
the independence of America is to accomplish the ruin of Eng- 
land after the war is over, and yet not affect it before. America 
cannot be more independent of her, nor a greater enemy to her, 
hereafter than she now is ; nor can England derive less advan- 
tages from her than at present : why then is ruin to follow in the 
best state of the case, and not in the worst 1 And if not in the 
worst, why is it to follow at all 1 

That a nation is to be ruined by peace and commerce, and 
fourteen or fifteen millions a-year less expenses than before, is a 
new doctrine in politics. We have heard much clamor of na- 
tional savings and economy ; but surely the true economy would 
be, to save the whole charge of a silly, foolish, and headstrong 
war ; because, compared with this, all other retrenchments are 
baubles and trifles. 

But is it possible that lord Shelburne can be serious in suppos- 
ing that the least advantage can be obtained by arms, or that any 
advantage can be equal to the expense or the danger of attempting 
it 1 Will not the capture of one army after another satisfy him, 
must all become prisoners 1 Must England ever be the sport of 
hope, and the victim of delusion 1 Sometimes our currency was 
to fail ; another time our army was to disband : then whole pro- 
vinces were to revolt. Such a general said this and that ; an 
other wrote so and so ; lord Chatham was of this opinion ; and 
lord somebody else of another. To-day 20,000 Russians and 
20 Russian ships of the line were to come ; to-morrow the 
empress was abused without mercy or decency. Then the 
emperor of Germany was to be bribed with a million of money, 
and the king of Prussia was to do wonderful things. At one time 



352 THE CRISIS. 

it was, Lo here ! and then it was, Lo there ! Sometimes this 
power, and sometimes that power, was to engage in the war* just 
as if the whole world was as mad and foolish as Britain. And 
thus, from year to year, has every straw been catched at, and 
every Will- with-a- wisp led them a new dance. 

This year a still newer folly is to take place. Lord Shelburne 
wishes to be sent to congress, and he thinks that something may 
be done. 

Are not the repeated declarations of congress, and which all 
America supports, that they will not even hear any proposals 
whatever, until the unconditional and unequivocal independence 
of America is recognised ; are not, I say, these declarations 
answer enough 1 

But for England to receive any thing from America now, after 
so many insults, injuries and outrages, acted towards us, would 
show such a spirit of meanness in her, that we could not but de- 
spise her for accepting it. And so far from lord Shelburne's 
coming here to solicit it, it would be the greatest disgrace we 
could do them to offer it. England would appear a wretch 
indeed, at this time of day, to ask or owe any thing to the bounty 
of America. Has not the name of Englishman blots enough 
upon it, without inventing more ? Even Lucifer would scorn to 
reign in heaven by permission, and yet an Englishman can creep 
for only an entrance into America. Or, has a land of liberty so 
many charms, that to be a door-keeper in it is better than to be 
an English minister of state 1 

But what can this expected something be ? Or, if obtained, 
what can it amount to, but new disgraces, contentions and quar- 
rels 1 The people of America have for years accustomed them- 
selves to think and speak so freely and contemptuously of 
English authority, and the inveteracy is so deeply rooted, that a 
person invested with any authority from that country, and 
attempting to exercise it here, would have the life of a toad under 
a harrow. They would look on him as an interloper, to whom 
their compassion permitted a residence. He would be no more 
than the Mungo of a farce ; and if he disliked that, he must set 
off. It would be a station of degradation, debased by our pity, 
and despised by our pride, and would place England in a more 
contemptible situation than any she has yet been in during the 
war. We have too high an opinion of ourselves, ever to think of 



THE CRISIS. 253 

yielding again the least obedience to outlandish authority ; and 
for a thousand reasons, England would be the last country in the 
world to yield it to. She has been treacherous, and we know it. 
Her character is gone, and we have seen the funeral. 

Surely she loves to fish in troubled waters, and drink the cup 
of contention, or she would not now think of mingling her affairs 
with those of America. It would be like a foolish dotard taking 
to his arms the bride that despises him, or who has placed on his 
head the ensigns of her disgust. It is kissing the hand that boxes 
his ears, and proposing to renew the exchange. The thought is 
as servile as the war is wicked, and shows the last scene of the 
drama to be as inconsistent as the first. 

As America is gone, the only act of manhood is to let her go. 
Your lordship had no hand in the separation, and you will gain no 
honor by temporising politics. Besides, there is something so 
exceedingly whimsical, unsteady, and even insincere in the present 
conduct of England, that she exhibits herself in the most dis- 
honorable colors. 

On the second of August last, general Carleton and admiral 
Digby wrote to general Washington in these words : 

" The resolution of the house of commons, of the 27th of 
February last, has been placed in your excellency's hands, and 
intimations given at the same time that further pacific measures 
were likely to follow. Since which, until the present time, we 
have had no direct communications with England ; but a mail is 
now arrived, which brings us very important information. We 
are acquainted, sir, by authority, that negotiations for a general 
peace have already commenced at Paris, and that Mr. Grenville 
is invested with full powers to treat with all the parties at war, and 
is now at Paris in execution of his commission. And we are fur- 
ther, sir, made acquainted, that his majesty, in order to remove any 
obstacles to that peace which he so ardently wishes to restore, has 
commanded his ministers to direct JVIr. Grenville, that the inde- 
pendence of the Thirteen United Provinces, should be proposed 
by him in the first instance, instead of making it a condition of a 
general treaty." 

Now, taking your present measures into view, and comparing 
them with the declaration in this letter, pray what is the word of 
your king, or his ministers, or the parliament, good for 1 Must 
we not look upon you as a confederated body of faithless, 



254 THE CRISIS. 

treacherous men, whose assurances are fraud, and their language 
deceit ? What opinion can we possibly form of you, but that you 
are a lost, abandoned, profligate nation, who sport even with your 
own character, and are to be held by nothing but the bayonet or 
the halter ? 

To say, after this, that the san of Great Britain will be set 
whenever she acknowledges the independence of America, when 
the not doing it is the unqualified lie of government, can be no 
other than the language of ridicule, the jargon of inconsistency. 
There were thousands in America who predicted the delusion, 
and looked upon it as a trick of treachery, to take us from our 
guard, and draw off our attention from the only system of finance, 
by which we can be called, or deserve to be called, a sovereign, 
independent people. The fraud, on your part, might be worth 
attempting, but the sacrifice to obtain it is too high. 

There are others who credited the assurance, because they 
thought it impossible that men who had their characters to estab- 
lish, would begin it with a lie. The prosecution of the war by 
the former ministry was savage and horrid ; since which it has 
been mean, trickish, and delusive. The one went greedily into 
the passion of revenge, the other into the subtleties of low con- 
trivance ; till, between the crimes of both, there is scarcely left a 
man in America, be he whig or tory, who does not despise or de- 
test the conduct of Britain. 

The management of lord Shelburne, whatever may be his 
views, is a caution to us, and must be to the world, never to re- 
gard British assurances. A perfidy so notorious cannot be hid. 
It stands even in the public papers of New- York, with the names 
of Carleton and Digby affixed to it. It is a proclamation that the 
king of England is not to be believed; that the spirit of lying is 
the governing principle of the ministry. It is holding up the char- 
acter of the house of commons to public infamy, and warning all 
men not to credit them. Such are the consequences which lord 
Shelburne's management has brought upon his country. 

After the authorized declarations contained in Carleton and 
Digby's letter, you ought, from every motive of honor, policy and 
prudence, to have fulfilled them, whatever might have been the 
event. It was the least atonement that you could possibly make 
to America, and the greatest kindness you could do to yourselves ; 



THE CRISIS. 255 

for you will save millions by a general peace, and you will lose as 
many by continuing the war. 

COMMON SENSE. 

Philadelphia, Oct. 29, 1782. 

P. S. The manuscript copy of this letter is sent your lord- 
ship, by the way of our head-quarters, to New- York, inclosing a 
late pamphlet of mine, addressed to the abbe Raynal, which will 
serve to give your lordship some idea of the principles and senti- 
ments of America. 

as. 



THE CRISIS. 



WO. XV. 






" The times that tried men's souls,"* are over — and the great- 
est and completest revolution the world ever knew, gloriously 
and happily accomplished. 

But to pass from the extremes ot danger to safety — from the 
tumult of war to the tranquillity of peace, though sweet in con- 
templation, requires a gradual composure of the senses to receive 
it. Even calmness has the power of stunning, when it opens too 
instantly upon us. The long and raging hurricane that should 
cease in a moment, would leave us in a state rather of wonder 
than enjoyment ; and some moments of recollection must pass, 
before we could be capable of tasting the felicity of repose. 
There are but few instances, in which the mind is fitted for sud- 
den transitions : it takes in its pleasures by reflection and compa- 
rison, and those must have time to act, before the relish for new 
scenes is complete. 

In the present case — the mighty magnitude of the object — the 
various uncertainties of fate it has undergone — the numerous and 
complicated dangers we have suffered or escaped — the eminence 
we now stand on, and the vast prospect before us, must all con- 
spire to impress us with contemplation. 

To see it in our power to make a world happy — to teach man- 
kind the art of being so— to exhibit, on the theatre of the universe, 
a character hitherto unknown — and to have, as it were, a new 
creation intrusted to our hands, are honors that command reflec- 
tion, and can neither be too highly estimated, nor too gratefully 
received. 

* " These are the times that try men's souls." The Crisis No. I. published 
December, 1776. 



THE CRISIS. 257 

In this pause then of recollection — while the storm is ceasing, 
and the long agitated mind vibrating to a rest, let us look back on 
the scenes we have passed, and learn from exDerience what is yet 
to be done. 

Never, I say, had a country so many openings to happiness as 
this. Her setting out in life, like the rising of a fair morning, 
was unclouded and promising. Her cause was good. Her prin- 
ciples just and liberal. Her temper serene and firm. Her con- 
duct regulated by the nicest steps, and every thing about her wore 
the mark of honor. It is not every country (perhaps there is 
not another in the world) that can boast so fair an origin. Even 
the first settlement of America corresponds with the character of 
the revolution. Rome, once the proud mistress of the universe, 
was originally a band of ruffians. Plunder and rapine made her 
rich, and her oppression of millions made her great. But Ame- 
rica need never be ashamed to tell her birth, nor relate the stages 
by which she rose to empire. 

The remembrance, then, of what is past, if it operates rightly, 
must inspire her with the most laudable of all ambition, that of 
adding to the fair fame she began with. The world has seen her 
great in adversity. Struggling, without a thought of yielding, 
beneath accumulated difficulties. Bravely, nay proudly, encoun- 
tering distress, and rising in resolution as the storm increased. 
All this is justly due to her, for her fortitude has merited the cha- 
racter. Let, then, the world see that she can bear prosperity : 
and that her honest virtue in time of peace, is equal to the bravest 
virtue in time of war. 

She is now descending to the scenes of quiet and domestic life. 
Not beneath the cypress shade of disappointment, but to enjoy 
in her own land, and under her own vine, the sweet of her labors, 
and the reward of her toil. — In this situation, may she never 
forget that a fair national reputation is of as much importance as 
independence. That it possesses a charm that wins upon the 
world, and makes even enemies civil. — That it gives a dignity 
which is often superior to power, and commands reverence where 
pomp and splendor fail. 

It would be a circumstance ever to be lamented and never to 
be forgotten, were a single blot, from any cause whatever, suffer- 
ed to fall on a revolution, which to the end of time must be an 
honor to the age that accomplished it : and which has contributed 

vol. i. 33 



258 THE CRISIS 

more to enlighten the world, ar.d diffuse a spirit of freedom and 
liberality among mankind, than any human event (if this may be 
called one) that ever preceded it. 

It is not among the least of the calamities of a long continued 
war, that it unhinges the mind from those nice sensations which 
at other times appear so amiable. The continual spectacle of 
wo blunts the finer feelings, and the necessity of bearing with the 
sight, renders it familiar. In like manner, are many of the moral 
obligations of society weakened, till the custom of acting by ne- 
cessity becomes an apology, where it is truly a crime. Yet let 
but a nation conceive rightly of its character, and it will be 
chastely just in protecting it. None ever began with a fairer than 
America, and none can be under a greater obligation to pre- 
serve it. 

The debt which America has contracted, compared with the 
cause she has gained, and the advantages to flow from it, ought 
scarcely to be mentioned. She has it in her choice to do, and to 
live as happily as she pleases. The world is in her hands. She 
has no foreign power to monopolize her commerce, perplex her 
legislation, or control her prosperity. The struggle is over, which 
must one day have happened, and, perhaps, never could have 
happened at a better time.* And instead of a domineering mas 



* That the revolution began at the exact period of time best fitted to the 
purpose, is sufficiently proved by the event. — But the great hinge on which 
the whole machine turned, is the Union of the States : and this union was 
naturally produced by the inability of any one state to support itself against 
any foreign enemy without the assistance of the rest. 

Had the states severally been less able than they were when the war began, 
their united strength would not have been equal to the undertaking, and they 
must in all human probability have failed. — And, on the other hand, had they 
severally been more able, they might not have seen, or, what is more, might 
not have felt, the necessity of uniting : and, either by attempting to stand 
alone or in small confederacies, would have been separately conquered. 

Now, as we cannot see a time (and many years must pass away before it 
can arrive) when the strength of any one state, or several united, can be equal 
to the whole of the present United States, and as we have seen the extreme 
difficulty of collectively prosecuting the war to a successful issue, and pre- 
serving our national importance in the world, therefore, from the experience 
we have had, and the knowledge we have gained, we must, unless we make 
a waste of wisdom, be strongly impressed with the advantage, as well as the 
necessity of strengthening that happy union which has been our salvation, 
and without which we should have been a ruined people. 

While I was writing this note, I cast my eye on the pamphlet, Common 
Sense, from which I shall make an extract, as it exactly applies to the case. 
It is as follows : 

" I have never met with a man, either in England or America, who hath 
not confessed it as his opinion that a separation between the countries would 
take place one time or other j and there is no instance in which we have 



THE CRISIS. 259 

ter, she ha? gained %n ally, whose exemplary greatness, and 
universal liberality, have extorted a confession even from her 
enemies. 

With the blessings of peace, independence, and an universal 
commerce, the states, individually and collectively, will have lei- 
sure and opportunity to regulate and establish their domestic con- 
cerns, and to put it beyond the power of calumny to throw the 
least reflection on their honor. Character is much easier kept 
than recovered, and that man, if any such there be, who, from 
minister views, or littleness of soul, lends unseen his hand to in- 
jure it, contrives a wound it will never be in his power to heal. 

As we have established an inheritance for posterity, let that in- 
heritance descend, with every mark of an honorable conveyance. 
The little it will cost, compared with the worth of the states, the 
greatness of the object, and the value of national character, will 
be a profitable exchange. 

But that which must more forcibly strike a thoughtful, pene- 
trating mind, and which includes and renders easy all inferior 
concerns, is the Union of the States. On this our great national 
character depends. It is this which must give us importance 
abroad and security at home. It is through this only, that we 
are, or can be nationally known in the world ; it is the flag of the 
United States which renders our ships and commerce safe on the 
seas, or in a foreign port. Our Mediterranean passes must be 
obtained under the same style. All our treaties, whether of alli- 
ance, peace or commerce, are formed under the sovereignty of 
the United States, and Europe knows us by no other name or 
title. 

The division of the empire into states is for our own conve- 
nience, but abroad this distinction ceases. The affairs of each 
state are local. They can go no further than to itself. And 
were the whole worth of even the richest of them expended in 

shown less judgment, than in endeavoring to describe, what we call, the ripe- 
ness or fitness of the continent for independence. 

■'■ As all men allow the measure, and differ only in their opinion of the 
tune, let us, in order to remove mistakes, take a general survey of things, and 
endeavor, if possible, to find out the very time. But we need not to go far, 
the inquiry ceases at once, for, the time has found us. The general concur- 
rence, the glorious union of all things prove the fact. 

"It is not in numbers, but in a union, that our great strength lies. The 
continent is just arrived at that pitch of strength, in which no single colony is 
able to support itself, and the whole, when united, can accomplish the matter j 
and either more or less than this, might be fatal in its effects." 



260 THE CRISIS. 

revenue, it would not be sufficient to support sovereignty agaiiiat 
a foreign "attack. In short, we have no other national sovereignty 
than as United States. It would even be fatal for us if we had 
— too expensive to be maintained, and impossible to be support- 
ed. Individuals, or individual states, may call themselves what 
they please ; but the world, and especially the world of enemies, 
is not to be held in awe by the whistling of a name. Sovereignty 
must have power to protect all the parts that compose and consti- 
tute it : and as united states we are equal to the importance 
of the title, but otherwise we are not. Our union, well and wise- 
ly regulated and cemented, is the cheapest way of being great — 
the easiest way of being powerful, and the happiest invention in 
government which the circumstances of America can admit of. — 
Because it collects from each state, that which, by being inade- 
quate, can be of no use to it, and forms an aggregate that serves 
for all. 

The states of Holland are an unfortunate instance of the effects 
of individual sovereignty. Their disjointed condition exposes 
them to numerous intrigues, losses, calamities and enemies ; and 
the almost impossibility of bringing their measures to a decision, 
and that decision into execution, is to them, and would be to us, 
a source of endless misfortune. 

It is with confederated states as with individuals in society ; 
something must be yielded up to make the whole secure. In this 
view of things we gain by what we give, and draw an annual in- 
terest greater than the capital. — I ever feel myself hurt when 1 
hear the union, that great palladium of our liberty and safety, the 
least irreverently spoken of. It is the most sacred thing in the 
constitution of America, and that which every man should be 
most proud and tender of. Our citizenship in the United States 
is our national character. Our citizenship in any particular state 
is only our local distinction. By the latter we are known at 
home, by the former to the world. Our great title is Americans 
— our inferior one varies with the place. 

So far as my endeavors could go, they have all been directed 
to conciliate the affections, unite the interests, and draw and keep 
the mind of the country together ; and the better to assist in this 
foundation work of the revolution, I have avoided all places of 
profit or office, either in the state I live in, or in the United States ; 
kept myself at a distance from all parties and party connexions, 



THE CRISIS. 261 

and even disregarded all private and inferior concerns : and when 
we take into view the great work which we have gone through, 
and feel, as we ought to feel, the just importance of it, we shall 
then see, that the little wranglings and indecent contentions of 
personal parley, are as dishonorable to our characters, as they are 
injurious to our repose. 

It was the cause of America that made me an author. The 
force with which it struck my mind, and the dangerous condition 
the country appeared to me in, by courting an impossible and an 
unnatural reconciliation with those who were determined to reduce 
her, instead of striking out into the only line that could cement 
and save her, a declaration of independence, made it im- 
possible for me, feeling as I did, to be silent : and if, in the course 
of more than seven years, I have rendered her any service, I have 
likewise added something to the reputation of literature, by freely 
and disinterestedly employing it in the great cause of mankind, 
and showing that there may be genius without prostitution. 

Independence always appeared to me practicable and proba- 
ble ; provided the sentiment of the country could be formed and 
aeld to the object : and there is no instance in the world, where 
a people so extended, and wedded to former habits of thinking, 
and under such a variety of circumstances, were so instantly and 
effectually pervaded, by a turn in politics, as in the case of inde- 
pendence, and who supported their opinion, undiminished, through 
such a succession of good and ill fortune, till they crowned it 
'tvith success. 

But as the scenes of war arc closed, and every man preparing 
*br home and happier times, I therefore take my leave of the sub- 
ject. I have most sincerely followed it from beginning to end, 
and through all its turns and windings : and whatever country I 
may hereafter be in, I shall always feel an honest pride at the 
oart I have taken and acted, and a gratitude to nature and provi- 
dence for putting it in my power to be of some use to mankind. 

COMMON SENSE. 
Philadelphia, April 19, 1783. 






THE CRISIS. 



JJO. XVI. 



TO THE PEOPLE OF AMERICA. 

In " Rivington's New- York Gazette," of December 6th, is a 
publication, under the appearance of a letter from London, dated 
September 30th ; and is on a subject which demands the attention 
of the United States. 

The public will remember that a treaty of commerce between 
the United States and England was set on foot last spring, and 
that until the said treaty could be completed, a bill was brought 
into the British parliament by the then chancellor of the exche- 
quer, Mr. Pitt, to admit and legalize (as the case then required) 
the commerce of the United States into the British ports and do- 
minions. But neither the one nor the other has been completed. 
The commercial treaty is either broken off, or remains as it began ; 
and the bill in parliament has been thrown aside. And in lieu 
thereof, a selfish system of English politics has started up, cal- 
culated to fetter the commerce of America, by engrossing to 
England the carrying trade of the American produce to the West 
India islands. 

Among the advocates for this last measure is lord Sheffield, a 
member of the British parliament, who has published a pamphlet 
entitled " Observations on the Commerce of the American States." 
The pamphlet has two objects ; the one is to allure the Ameri- 
cans to purchase British manufactures ; and the other to spirit up 
the British parliament to prohibit the citizens of the United States 
from trading to the West India islands. 

Viewed in this light, the pamphlet, though in some parts dex- 
terously written, is an absurdity. It offends, in the very act of 
endeavoring to ingratiate ; and his lordship, as a politician, ought 



THE CRISIS. 263 

not to have suffered the two objects to have appeared together. 
The letter alluded to, contains extracts from the pamphlet, with 
high encomiums on lord Sheffield, for laboriously endeavoring (as 
the letter styles it) '* to show the mighty advantages of retaining 
the carrying trade." . 

Since the publication of this pamphlet in England, the com- 
merce of the United States to the West Indies, in American ves- 
sels, has been prohibited ; and all intercourse, except in British 
bottoms, the property of, and navigated by British subjects, 
cut off. 

That a country has a right to be as foolish as it pleases, has 
been proved by the practice of England for many years past : in 
her island situation, sequestered from the world, she forgets that 
her whispers are heard by other nations ; and in her plans of poli- 
tics and commerce, she seems not to know, that other votes are 
necessary besides her own. America would be equally as foolish 
as Britain, were she to suffer so great a degradation on her flag, 
and such a stroke on the freedom of her commerce, to pass with- 
out a balance. 

We admit the right of any nation to prohibit the commerce of 
another into its own dominions, where there are no treaties to the 
contrary ; but as this right belongs to one side as well as the 
other, there is always a way left to bring avarice and insolence to 
reason. 

But the ground of security which lord Sheffield has chosen to 
erect his policy upon, is of a nature which ought, and I think 
must, awaken, in every American, a just and strong sense of na- 
tional dignity. Lord Sheffield appears to be sensible, that in ad- 
vising the British nation and parliament to engross to themselves 
so great a part of the carrying trade of America, he is attempting 
a measure which cannot succeed, if the politics of the United 
States be properly directed to counteract the assumption. 

But, says he, in his pamphlet, "It will be a long time before the 
American states can be brought to act as a nation, neither are they 
to be feared as such by us." 

What is this more or less than to tell us, that while we have no 
national system of commerce, the British will govern our trade by 
their own laws and proclamations as they please. The quotation 
discloses a truth too serious to be overlooked, and too mischiev- 
ous not to be remedied. 



264 THE CRISIS. 

Among other circumstances which led them to this discovery, 
none could operate so effectually as the injudicious, uncandid and 
indecent opposition made by sundry persons in a certain state, to 
the recommendations of congress last winter, for an import duty 
of five per cent. It could not but explain to the British a weak- 
ness in the national power of America, and encourage them to 
attempt restrictions on her trade, which otherwise they would not 
have dared to hazard. Neither is there any state in the union, 
whose policy was more misdirected to its interest than the state I 
allude to, because her principal support is the carrying trade, 
which Britain, induced by the want of a well-centred power in the 
United States to protect and secure, is now attempting to take 
away. It fortunately happened (and to no state in the union 
more than the state in question) that the terms of peace were 
agreed on before the opposition appeared, otherwise, there cannot 
be a doubt, that if the same idea of the diminished authority of 
America had occurred to them at that time as has occurred to 
them since, but they would have made the same grasp at the 
fisheries, as they have done at the carrying trade. 

It is surprising that an authority which can be supported with so 
much ease, and so little expense, and capable of such extensive 
advantages to the country, should he cavilled at by those whose 
duty it is to watch over it, and whose existence as a people de- 
pends upon it. But thi- , perhaps, will ever be the case, till some 
misfortune awakens us into reason, and the instance now before 
us is but a gentle beginning of what America must expect, unless 
she guards her union with nicer care and stricter honor. United, 
she is formidable, and that with the least possible charge a nation 
can be so : separated, she is a medley of individual nothings, 
subject to the sport of foreign nations. 

It is very probable that the ingenuity of commerce may have 
found out a method to evade and supersede the intentions of the 
British, in interdicting the trade with the West India islands. 
The language of both being the same, and their customs well un- 
derstood, the vessels of one country may, by deception, pass for 
those of another. But this would be a practice too debasing for 
a sovereign people to stoop to, and too profligate not to be dis- 
countenanced. An illicit trade, under any shape it can be placed, 
cannot be carried on without a violation of truth. America is 
now sovereign and independent, and ought to conduct her affairs 



THE CRISIS. 265 

in a regular style of character. She has the same right to say 
that no British vessel shall enter her ports, or that no British ma- 
nufactures shall be imported, but in American bottoms, the pro- 
perty of, and navigated by American subjects, as Britain has to 
say the same thing respecting the West Indies. Or she may lay 
a duty of ten, fifteen, or twenty shillings per ton (exclusive of 
other duties) on every British vessel coming from any port of the 
West Indies, where she is not admitted to trade, the said tonnage 
to continue as long on her side as the prohibition continues on 
the other. 

But it is only by acting in union, that the usurpations of foreign 
nations on the freedom of trade can be counteracted, and secu- 
rity extended to the commerce of America. And when we view 
a flag, which to the eye is beautiful, and to contemplate its rise 
and origin inspires a sensation of sublime delight, our national 
honor must unite with our interest to prevent injury to the one, or 
insult to tho other. 

COMMON SENSE. 
New-York, December 9, 1783. 



END OF THE CRISIS. 



vol. i. 34 



PUBLIC GOOD: 



BEING AN EXAMINATION INTO THE CLAIM OF VIRGINIA TO THE 

VACANT WESTERN TERRITORY, 

AND OF THE RIGHT OK THE UNITED STATES TO THE SAME: 
TO WHICH IS ADDED 

PROPOSALS POR LAYING OFF A NEW STATE, 

TO BE APPLIED AS A FUND FOR CARRYING ON THE WAR, OR 
REDEEMING THE NATIONAL DEBT. 

Written in 1730. 



PREFACE. 



The following pages are on a subject hitherto little under- 
stood but highly interesting to the United States. 

They contain an investigation of the claims of Virginia to the 
vacant Western territory, and of the right of the United States 
to the same ; with some outlines of a plan for laying out a new 
state, to be applied as a fund, for carrying on the war, or 
redeeming the national debt. 

The reader, in the course of this publication, will find it studi- 
ously plain, and, as far as I can judge, perfectly candid. What 
materials I could get at I have endeavoured to place in a clear 
line, and deduce such arguments therefrom as the subject re- 
quired. In the prosecution of it, I have considered myself as 
an advocate for the right of the states, and taken no other liberty 
with the subject than what a counsel would, and ought to do, 
in behalf of a client. 

I freely confess that the respect I had conceived, and still 
preserve, for the character of Virginia, was a constant check 
upon those sallies of imagination, which are fairly and advan- 
tageously indulged against an enemy, but ungenerous when 
against a friend. 

If there is anything I have omitted or mistaken, to the injury 
of the intentions of Virginia or her claims, I shall gladly rectify 
it, or if there is any thing yet to add, should the subject require 
it, I shall as cheerfully undertake it ; being fully convinced, 
that to have matters fairly discussed, and properly understood, 
is a principal means of preserving harmony and perpetuating 
friendship. 

THE AUTHOR 



PUBLIC GOOD. 



When we take into view the mutual happiness and united in- 
terests of the states of America, and consider the vast conse- 
quences to arise from a strict attention of each, and of all, £o 
every thing which is just, reasonable, and honorable ; or the evils 
that will follow from an inattention to those principles ; there 
cannot, and ought not, to remain a doubt but the governing rule 
of- right and of mutual good must in all public cases finally pre- 
side. 

The hand of providence has cast us into one common lot, and 
accomplished the independence of America, by the unanimous 
consent of the several parts, concurring at once in time, manner 
and circumstances. No superiority of interest, at the expense of 
the rest, induced the one, more than the other, into the measure. 
Virginia and Maryland, it is true, might foresee that their stap4e 
commodity, tobacco, by being no longer monopolized by Britain, 
would bring them a better price abroad : for as the tax on it 
in England was treble its first purchase from the planter, and they 
being now no longer compelled to send it under that obligation, 
and in the restricted manner they formerly were, it is easy to see 
that the article, from the alteration of the circumstances of trade, 
will, aud daily does, turn out to them with additional advantages. 



272 PUBLIC GOOD 

But this being a natural consequence, produced by that common 
freedom and independence of which all are partakers, is therefore 
an advantage they are entitled to, and on which the rest of the 
states can congratulate them without feeling a wish to lessen, but 
rather to extend it. To contribute to the increased prosperity of 
another, by the same means which occasion our own, is an agree- 
able reflection; and the more valuable any article of export 
becomes, the more riches will be introduced into and spread over 
the continent. 

Yet this is an advantage which those two states derive from the 
independence of America, superior to the local circumstances of 
the rest ; and of the two it more particularly belongs to Virginia 
than Maryland, because the staple commodity of a considerable 
part of Maryland is flour, which, as it is an article that is the growth 
of Europe as well as of America, cannot obtain a foreign market 
but by underselling, or at least by limiting it to the current price 
abroad. But tobacco commands its own price. It is not a plant 
of almost universal growth, like wheat. There are but few soils 
and climes that produce it to advantage, and before the cultivation 
of it in Virginia and Maryland, the price was from four to sixteen 
shillings sterling a pound in England.* 

But the condition of the vacant western territory of America 
makes a very different case to that of the circumstances of trade in 
any of the states. Those very lands, formed, in contemplation, the 
fund by which the debt of America would in the course of years' be 
redeemed. They were considered as the common right of all ; 
and it is only till lately that any pretension of claims has been 
made to the contrary. 

That difficulties and differences will arise in communities, 
ought always to be looked for. The opposition of interests, real 
or supposed, the variety of judgments ; the contrariety of temper ; 
and, in short, the whole composition of man, in his individual 
capacity, is tinctured with a disposition to contend ; but in his 
social capacity there is either a right, which, being proved, ter- 
minates the dispute, or a reasonableness in the measure, where 
no direct right can be made out, which decides or compromises 
the matter. 



* See Sir Dalby Thomas's Historical Account of the rise and growth of the 
West India Colonies. 



PUBLIC GOOD. 273 

As T shall have frequent occasion to mention the word right, I 
wish to be clearly understood in my definition of it. There are 
various senses in which this term is used, and custom has, in 
many of them, afforded it an introduction contrary to its true 
meaning. We are so naturally inclined to give the utmost degree 
of force to our own case, that we call every pretension, however 
founded, a right ; and by this means the term frequently stands 
opposed to justice and reason. 

After Theodore was elected king of Corsica, not many years 
ago, by the mere choice of the natives, for their own convenience 
in opposing the Genoese, he went over to England, run himself in 
debt, got himself into jail, and on his release therefrom, by the 
benefit of an act of insolvency, he surrendered up what he called 
his kingdom of Corsica, as a part of his personal property, for the 
use of his creditors ; some of whom may hereafter call this a 
charter, or by any other name more fashionable, and ground 
thereon what they may term a right to the sovereignty and pro- 
perty of Corsica. But does not justice abhor such an action both 
in him and them, under the prostituted name of a right, and must 
not laughter be excited wherever it is told ? 

A right, to be truly so, must be right in itself: yet many things 
have obtained the name of rights, which are originally founded in 
wrong. Of this kind are all rights by mere conquest, power or 
violence. In the cool moments of reflection we are obliged to 
allow, that the mode by which such a right is obtained, is not the 
best suited to that spirit of universal justice which ought to pre- 
side equally over all mankind. There is something in the estab- 
lishment of such a right, that we wish to slip over as easily as 
possible, and say as little about as can be. But in the case of a 
right founded in right, the mind is carried cheerfully into the 
subject, feels no compunction, suffers no distress, subjects its 
sensations to no violence, nor sees any thing in its way which 
requires an artificial smoothing. 

From this introduction I proceed to examine into the claims of 
Virginia ; first, as to the right, secondly, as to the reasonableness, 
and lastly, as to the consequences. 

The name, Virginia, originally bore a different meaning to 
what it does now. It stood in the place of the word North- 
America, and seems to have been a name comprehensive of all 

the English settlements or colonies on the continent, and not 
vol. i. 35 






274 PUBLIC GOOD. 

descriptive of any one as distinguishing it from the rest. AH to the 
southward of the Chesapeake, as low as the gulf of Mexico, was 
called South- Virginia, and all to the northward, North-Virginia, 
in a similar line of distinction, as we now call the whole continent 
North and South America.* 

The first charter or patent, was to Sir Walter Raleigh by 
Queen Elizabeth, of England, in the year 1583, and had neither 
name nor bounds. Upon Sir Walter's return, the name Virginia, 
was given to the whole country, including the now United States. 
Consequently the present Yirginia, either as a province or state 
can set up no exclusive claim to the Western territory under this 
patent, and that for two reasons ; first, because the words of the 
patent run to Sir Walter Raleigh, and such persons as he should 
nominate, themselves and their successors ; which is a line of suc- 
cession Yirginia does not pretend to stand in ; and secondly, 
because a prior question would arise, namely, who are to be 
understood by Yirginians under this patent 1 and the answer would 
be, all the inhabitants of America, from New-England to Florida. 

This patent, therefore, would destroy their exclusive claim, and 
invest the right collectively in the thirteen states. 

But it unfortunately happened, that the settlers under this 
patent, partly from misconduct, the opposition of the Indians, and 
other calamities, discontinued the process, and the patent became 
extinct. 

After this, James the first, who, in the year 1602, succeeded 
Elizabeth, issued a new patent, which I come next to describe. 

This patent differed from the former in this essential point, that 
it had limits, whereas the other had none : the former was intended 
to promote discoveries wherever they could be made, which 
accounts why no limits were affixed, and this fo settle discoveries 
already made, which likewise assigns a reason why limits should 
be described. 

In this patent were incorporated two companies, called the 
South- Yirginia company, and the North- Yirginia company, and 
sometimes the London company, and the Plymouth company. 

The South- Yirginia or London company was composed chiefly 
of London adventurers ; the North-Virginia or Plymouth com- 
pany was made up of adventurers from Plymouth in Devonshire 
and other persons of the western part of England. 
* Oldmixon's History of Virginia. 



FUBLIC GOOD. 275 

Though they were not to fix together, yet they were allowed to 
rhoose their places of settlement any where on the coast of 
America, then called Virginia, between the latitudes of 34 and 45 
degrees, which was a range of 760 miles : the south company was 
not to go below 34 degrees, nor the north company above 45 
degrees. But the patent expressed, that as soon as they had 
made their choice, each was to become limited to 50 miles 
each way on the coast, and 100 up the country ; so that the grant 
to each company was a square of 100 miles, and no more. 
The North-Virginia or Plymouth company settled to the eastward, 
and in the year 1614, changed the name, and called that part New- 
England. The South-Virginia or London company settled near 
Cape Henry. 

This then cannot be the patent of boundless extent, and that for 
two reasons ; first, because the limits are described, namely, a 
square of 100 miles ; and secondly, because there were two com- 
panies of equal rights included in the same patent. 

Three years after this, that is, in the year 1609, the South-. 
Virginia company applied for new powers from the crown of 
England, which were granted them in a new patent, and the boun- 
daries of the grant enlarged ; and this is the charter or patent, on 
which some of the present Virginians ground their pretension to 
boundless territory. 

The first reflection that presents itself on this enlargement of 
the grant is, that it must be supposed to bear some intended 
degree of reasonable comparison to that which it superseded. 
The former could not be greater than a square of one hundred 
miles ; and this new one being granted in lieu of that, and that 
within the space of three years, and by the same person, James 
the first, who was never famed either for profusion or generosity, 
cannot, on a review of the time and circumstances of the grant, be 
supposed a very extravagant or very extraordinary one. If a 
square of one hundred miles was not sufficiently large, twice that 
quantity was as much as could well be expected or solicited ; but 
to suppose that he, who had caution enough to confine the first 
grant within moderate bounds, should, in so short a space as three 
years, supersede it by another grant of many million times greater 
extent, is, on the face of the affair, a circumstantial nullity. 

Whether this patent, or charter, was in existence or not at the 
time the revolution commenced, is a matter I shall hereafter 



276 PUBLIC GOOD. 

speak to, and confine myself in this place to the limits which the 
said patent or charter lays down. The words are as follow : 

11 Beginning at the cape or point of land called cape or point 
Comfort, thence all along the seacoast to the northward 200 
miles, and from the said point or cape Comfort, all along the sea 
coast to the southward, 200 miles ; and all that space or circuit 
of land lying from the seacoast of the precinct aforesaid up into 
the land throughout, from sea to sea, west and northwest," 

The first remark I shall offer on the words of this grant is, that 
they are uncertain, obscure, and unintelligible, and may be con- 
strued into such a variety of contradictory meanings as to leave at 
last no meaning at all. 

Whether the two hundred miles each way from cape Comfort, 
were to be on a straight line, or ascertained by following the 
indented line of the coast, that is, " all along the seacoast" in and 
out as the coast lay, cannot now be fully determined ; because, 
as either will admit of supposition, and nothing but supposition 
can be produced, therefore neither can be taken as positive. 
Thus far may be said, that had it been intended to be a straight 
line, the word straight ought to have been inserted, which would 
have made the matter clear ; but as no inference can be ^11 
drawn to the advantage of that which does not appear, against that 
which does, therefore the omission implies negatively in favor of 
the coast-indented line, or that the 400 miles were to be traced 
on the windings of the coast, that is, " all along the seacoast." 

But what is meant by the words " west and northwest" is still 
more unintelligible. Whether they mean a west line and a north- 
west line, or whether they apply to the general lying of the land 
from the Atlantic, without regard to lines, cannot again be deter- 
mined. But if they are supposed to mean lines to be run, then a 
new difficulty of more magnitude than all the rest arises ; namely, 
from which end of the extent on the coast is the west line and the 
northwest line to be set off? As the difference in the contents of 
the grant, occasioned by transposing them, is many hundred mil- 
lions of acres ; and either includes or excludes a far greater 
quantity of land than the whole thirteen United States contain. 

In short, there is not a boundary in this grant that is clear, fixed 
and defined. The coast line is uncertain, and that being the base 
on which the others are to be formed, renders the whole uncertain. 
But even if this line was admitted, in either shape, the other 



PUBLIC GOOD. 



277 



boundaries would still be on supposition, till it might be said there 
is no boundary at all, and consequently no charter ; for words 
which describe nothing can give nothing. 

The advocates for the Virginia claim, laying hold of these am- 
biguities, have explained the grant thus : 

Four hundred miles on the sea-coast, and from the south 
point a west line to the great South sea, and from the north point a 
northwest line to the said south sea. The figure which these lines 
produce will be thus : 




New- 
York. 



New- 
England. 



200 S. 



200 N. 



But why, I ask, must the west land line be set off from the south 
point, any more than the north point ? The grant or patent does 
not say from which it shall be, neither is it clear that a line is the 
thing intended by the words : but admitting that it is, on what 
grounds do the claimants proceed in making this choice 1 The 
answer, I presume, is easily given, namely, because it is the most 
beneficial explanation to themselves they can possibly make ; as 
it takes in many thousand times more extent of country than any 
other explanation would. But this, though it be a very good 
reason to them, is a very bad reason to us ; and though it may do for 
the claimants to hope upon, will not answer to plead upon ; espe- 
cially to the very people, who, to confirm the partiality of the 
claimants' choice, must relinquish their own right and interest. 

Why not set off the west land line from the north end of the 
coast line, and the northwest line from the south end of the same 1 
There is some reason why this should be the construction, and 
none why the other should. 



' 



278 PUBLIC GOOD. 

1st, Because if the line of two hundred miles each way from 
cape Comfort, be traced by following the indented line of the 
coast, which seems to be the implied intention of the words, and a 
west line set off from the north end, and a northwest line from the 
south end, these lines will all unite (which the other construction 
never can) and form a complete triangle, the contents of which 
will be about twenty-nine or thirty millions of acres, or something 
larger than Pennsylvania : and 

2d, Because this construction is following the order of the lines 
as expressed in the grant ; for the first mentioned coast line, 
which is to the northward of cape Comfort, and the first men- 
tioned land line, which is the west line, have a numerical relation, 
being the first mentioned of each ; and implies, that the west line 
was to be set off from the north point and not from the south point : 
and consequently the two last mentioned of each have the same 
numerical relation, and again implies that the northwest line was 
to be set ofF from the south point, and not from the north point. 
But why the claimants should break through the order of the lines, 
and contrary to implication, join the first mentioned of the one, to 
the last mentioned of the other, and thereby produce a shapeless 
monster, for which there is no name nor any parallel in the world, 
eitner as to extent of soil and sovereignty, is a construction that 
caunot be aupported. 






PUBLIC GOOD. 



279 



The figure produced by following the order of the lines is as 
follows : 

N. B. If the reader will cast his eye again over the words of the patent on p. 
276, he will perceive the numerical relation alluded to, by observing;, that the 
nrst mentioned coast line and the first mentioned land line are distinguished by 
capitals. And the last mentioned of each by italics, which I have chosen 
to do to illustrate the explanation. 




200 S. 



200 N 



1 presume that if 400 miles be traced by following the indexes 
o( any seashore, that the two extremes will not be more than 300 
miles distant from each other, on a straight line. Therefore, to 
find the contents of a triangle, whose base is 300 miles, multi- 
ply the length of the base into half the perpendicular, which, in 
this case, is the west line, and the product will be tne answer : 



300 miles, length of the base. 
1 50 half the perpendicular (supposing it a right-angled triangle.) 



15000 
300 



45,000 contents of the grant in square miles. 
640 acres in a square mile. 



1800000 
270000 



28,800,000 contents in square acres. 

Now will any one undertake to say, that this explanation is not 
as fairly drawn (if not more so) from the words themselves, as 
any other that can be offered ? Because it is not only justified 
by the exact words of the patent, grant, or charter, or any other 



280 PUBLIC GOOD. 

name by which it may be called, but by their implied meaning ; 
and is likewise of such contents as may be supposed to have been 
intended ; whereas the claimants' explanation is without bounds, 
and beyond every thing that is reasonable. Yet, after all, who 
can say what was the precise meaning of terms and expressions so 
loosely formed, and capable of such a variety of contradictory in- 
terpretations ? 

Had the order of the lines been otherwise than they are in the 
patent, the reasonableness of the thing must have directed the 
manner in which they should be connected : but as the claim is 
founded in unreasonableness, and that unreasonableness endeavor- 
ed to be supported by a transposition of the lines, there remains 
no pretence for the claim to stand on. 

Perhaps those who are interested in the claimants' explanation 
will say that as the South sea is spoken of, the lines must be as 
they explain them, in order to reach it. 

To this I reply ; first, that no man then knew how far it was 
from the Atlantic to the South sea, as I shall presently show, but 
believed it to be but a short distance : and, 

Secondly, that the uncertain and ambiguous manner in which 
the South sea is alluded to (for it is not mentioned by name, but 
only "from sea to sea ") serves to perplex the patent, and not to 
explain it ; and as no right can be founded on an ambiguity, but 
on some proof cleared of ambiguity, therefore the allusive intro- 
duction of " from to sea " can yield no service to the claim. 

There is likewise an ambiguous mention made of two lands in 
this patent, as well as of two seas ; viz. and all that " space or 
circuit of land lying from the sea-coast of the precinct aforesaid 
up in to the land throughout from sea to sea." 

On which I remark, that the two lands here mentioned have the 
appearance of a major and a minor, or the greater out of which the 
less is to be taken : and the term from " sea to sea " may be said 
to apply descriptively to the land throughout and not to the " space 
or circuit of land patented to the company ;" in a similar manner 
that a former patent described a major of 706 miles in extent, out 
of which the minor, or square of one hundred miles, was to be 
chosen. 

But to suppose that because the South sea is darkly alluded to, 
it must therefore (at whatever distance it might be, which then 
nobody knew, or for whatever purpose it might be introduced) be 



PUBLIC GOOD. 281 

made a certain boundary, and that without regard to the reason 
ableness of the matter, or the order in which the lines are arrang- 
ed, which is the only implication the patent gives for setting off 
the land lines, is a supposition that contradicts every thing which 
is reasonable. 

The figure produced by the following order of the lines will be 
complete in itself, let the distance to the South sea be more or 
less ; because, if the land throughout from sea to sea had not 
been sufficiently extensive to admit the west land line and the 
northwest land line to close, the South sea, in that case, would 
have eventually become a boundary ; but if the extent of the land 
throughout from sea to sea, was so great that the lines closed 
without reaching the said South sea, the figure was complete with- 
out it. 

Wherefore, as the order of the lines, when raised on the indented 
coast line, produces a regular figure of reasonable dimensions, 
and of about the tame contents, though not of the same .shape, 
which Virginia now holds within the Allegany mountains ; and by 
transposing them, another figure is produced, for which there is 
no name, and cannot be completed, as 1 shall presently explain, 
and of an extent greater than one half of Europe, it is needless to 
offer any other arguments to show that the order of the lines must 
be the rule, if any rule can be drawn from the words, for ascertain- 
ing from which point the west line and northwest line were to be 
set oil*. Neither is it possible to suppose any other rule could be 
followed ; because a northwest line set off two hundred miles 
above cape Comfort, would not only never touch the South sea, 
but would form a spiral line of infinite windings round the globe, 
and after passing over the northern parts of America and he 
frozen ocean, and then into the northern parts of Asia, would, when 
eternity should end, and not before, terminate in the north pole. 

This is the only manner in which I can express the effect of a 
northwest line, set off as above ; because as its direction must al- 
ways be between the north and the west, it consequently can never 
get into the pole nor yet come to a rest, and on the principle that 
matter or space is capable of being eternally divided, must proceed 
on for ever. 

But it was a prevailing opinion, at the time this patent was 
obtained, that the South sea was at no great distance from the 
Atlantic, and therefore it was needless, under that supposition, ;o 

vol. i. 36 



282 PUBLIC GOOD, 

regard which way the lines should be run ; neither need we won- 
der at this error in the English government respecting America 
then, when we see so many, and such glaring ones now, for wnich 
there is much less excuse. 

Some circumstances favored this mistake. Admiral Sir Francis 
Drake, not long before this, had, from the top of a mountain in the 
isthmus of Darien, which is the centre of North and South Ameri- 
ca, seen both the South sea and the Atlantic ; the width of the 
part of the continent where he then was, not being above 70 miles, 
whereas its width opposite Chesapeake bay is as great, if not 
greater, than in any other part, being from sea to sea, about the 
distance it is from America to England. But this could not then 
be known, because only two voyages had been made across the 
South sea; the one by the ship in which Magellan sailed, who died 
on his passage, and which was the first ship which sailed round the 
world, and the other was by Sir Francis Drake : but as neither of 
these sailed into a northern latitude in that ocean, high enough to 
fix the longitude of the western coast of America from the eastern, 
the distance across was entirely on supposition, and the errors 
they then ran into appear laughable to us who now know what the 
distance is. 

That the company expected to come at the South sea without 
much trouble or travelling, and that the great body of land which 
intervened, so far from being their view in obtaining the charter, 
became their disappointment, may be collected from a circum- 
stance mentioned in Stith's History of Virginia. 

He relates, that in the year 1608, which was at the time the 
company were soliciting this patent, they fitted up in England " a 
barge for captain Newport," (who was afterwards one of the joint 
deputy governors under the very charter we are now treating of) 
44 which, for convenience of carriage, might be taken into five 
pieces, and with which he and his company were instructed to go 
up James' river as far as the falls thereof, to discover the country 
of the Monakins, and from thence they were to proceed, carrying 
their barge beyond the falls to convey them to the South sea ; being 
ordered not to return without a lump of gold, or a certainty of tne 
said sea. 

And Hutchinson, in his history of New-England, which was 
called North Virginia at the time this patent was obtained, say* 
44 the geography of this part of America was less understood thun 






PUBLIC GOOD. 283 

at present. A line to the Spanish settlements was imagined 
much shorter than it really was. Some of Chaplain's people in 
the beginning of the last century, who had been but a few days 
march from Quebec, returned with great joy, supposing that from 
the top of a high mountain, they had discovered the South 
sea." 

From these matters, which are evidences on record, it appears 
that the adventurers had no knowledge of the distance it was to the 
South sea, hut supposed it to be no great way from the Atlantic ; 
and also that great extent of territory was not their object, but a 
short communication with the southern ocean, by which they might 
get into the neighborhood of the Gold coast, and likewise carry 
on a commerce with the East Indies. 

Having thus shown the confused and various interpretations this 
charter is subject to, and that it may be made to mean any thing 
and nothing ; I proceed to show, that, let the limits of it be more 
or less, the present state of Virginia does not, and cannot, as a 
matter of right, inherit under it. 

I shall open this part of the subject by putting the follewing 
case • 

Either Virginia stands in succession to the London company, 
to whom the charter was granted, or to the crown of England. If 
to the London company, then it becomes her, as an outset in the 
matter, to show who they were, and likewise that they were in 
possession to the commencement of the revolution. — If to the 
crown, then the charter is of consequence superseded ; because 
the crown did not possess territories by charter, but by prerogative 
without charter. The notion of the crown chartering to itself is a 
nullity ; and in this case, the unpossessed lands, be they little or 
much, are in the same condition as if they never had been charter- 
ed at all ; and the sovereignty of them devolves to the sovereignty 
of the United States. 

The charter or patent of 1609, as well as that of 1606, was to 
Sir Thomas Gates, Sir George Summers, the Rev. Richard 
Hacluit, prebend of Westminster, and others ; and the government 
was then proprietary. These proprietors, by virtue of the charter 
of 1709, chose lord Delaware for their governor, and Sir Thomas 
Gates, Sir George Summers, and captain Newport, (the person 
who was to go with a boat to the South sea,) joint deputy 
governors. 



284 PUBLIC GOOD. 

Was this the form of government either as to soil or constitu- 
tion at the time the present revolution commenced ? If not, the 
charter was not in being ; for it matters not to us how it came to 
be out of being, so long as the present Virginians, or their 
ancestors, neither are, nor were sufferers by the change then 
made. 

But suppose it could not be proved to be in being, which it 
cannot, because being, in a charter, is power, it would only 
prove a right in behalf of the London company of adventurers, 
but how that right is to be disposed of is another question. We 
are not defending the right of the London company, deceased 150 
years ago, but taking up the matter at the place where we found it, 
and so far as the authority of the crown of England was exercised 
when the revolution commenced. 

The charter was a contract between the crown of England and 
those adventurers for their own emolument, and not between the 
crown and the people of Virginia ; and whatever was the occasion 
of the contract becoming void, or surrendered up, or superseded, 
makes no part of the question now. It is sufficient that when the 
United States succeeded to sovereignty they found no such con- 
tract in existence, or even in litigation. They found Virginia 
under the authority of the crown of England, both as to soil and 
government, subject to quit-rents to the crown and not to the com- 
pany, and had been so for upwards of 150 years : and that an 
instrument or deed of writing, of a private nature, as all proprietary 
contracts are, so far as land is concerned, and which is 'now his- 
torically known, and in which Virginia was no party, and to which 
no succession in any line can be proved, and has ceased for 150 
years, should now be raked from oblivion and held up as a char- 
ter whereon to assume a right to boundless territory, and that 
by a pervertion of the order of it, is something very singular 
and extraordinary. 

If there was any innovation on the part of the crown, the con 
test rested between the crown and the proprietors, the London 
company, and not between Virginia and the said crown. It was 
not her charter ; it was the company's charter, and the only parties 
in the case were the crown and the company. 

But why, if Virginia contends for the immutability of charters, 
has she selected this in preference to the two former ones ? Ai/ 
her arguments, arising from this principle, must go to the firs*. 






PUBLIC GOOD. 285 

charter and not to the last ; but by placing them to the last, in- 
stead of the first, she admits a fact against her principle ; because, 
in order to < stablish the last, she proves the first to be vacated by 
the second in the space of 23 years, the second to be vacated by 
the third in the space of 3 years ; and why the third should not be 
vacated by the fourth form of government, issuing from the same 
power with the former two, and which took place about 25 years 
after, and continued in being for 150 years since, and under which 
all her public and private business was transacted, her purchases 
made, her warrants for survey and patents for land obtained, is 
too mysterious to account for. 

Either the re-assumption of the London company's charter into 
the hands of the crown was an usurpation, or it was not. If it 
then, strictly speaking, is every thing which Virginia lias done 
under that Usurpation illegal, and she may be said to have lived in 
the most curious species of rebellion ever known ; rebellion 
against the London company of ad\en!urer>. For it' the charter 

to the company (for it was not to the \ irginians) ought to be in 

being now, it ought to have been in being then ; and why she 
should admit its vacation then and reject it now, is unaccountable ; 
or why she should esteem her purchases of lands good which wer« 
Him made contrary to this charter, and now contend for tke 
operation of the same charter to possess new territory by, are 
circumstances which cannot be reconciled. 

But whether the charter, as it is called, ought to be extinct or 
not, cannot make a question with us. All the parties cencerned 
in it are deceased, and no successors, in any regular lire of suc- 
cession, appear to claim. Neither the London company of 
adventurers, their heirs or assigns, were in possession' of the exer- 
cise of this charter at the commencement of the revolution; and 
therefore the state of Virginia does not, in point of Aict, succeed to 
and inherit from the company. 

But, say they, we succeed to and inherit I'oin the crown of 
England, which was the immediate possessor of the sovereignty 
at the time we entered, and had been so for 15^ years. 

To say this, is to say there is no charter at all. A charter is an 
assurance from one party to another, and csnnot be from the same 
party to itself. 

But before I enter further on this case, I shall concisely state 






286 PUBLIC GOOD. 

how this charter came to be re-assumed by the power which 
granted it, the crown of England. 

I have already stated that it was a proprietary charter, or grant, 
to Sir Thomas Gates and others, who were called the London 
company, and sometimes the South Virginia company, to dis- 
tinguish them from those who settled to the eastward (now New- 
England) and were then called the North-Virginia or Plymouth 
company. 

Oldmixon's History of Virginia (in his account of the British 
empire in America) published in the year 1708, gives a concise 
progress of the affair. He attributes it to the misconduct, conten 
tions and mismanagements of the proprietors, and their innovations 
upon the Indians, which had so exasperated them, that they fell on 
the settlers, and destroyed at one time 334 men, women and 
children. 

" Some time after this massacre," says he, " several gentle- 
men in England procured grants of land from the company, and 
others came over on their private accounts to make settlements ; 
among the former was one captain Martin, who was named to be 
of the council. This man raised so many differences among 
ihem, that new distractions followed, which the Indians observing, 
took heart, and once more fell upon the settlers on the borders, 
destroying, without pitying either age, sex, or condition. 

11 These and other calamities being chiefly imputed to the mis- 
management of the proprietors, whose losses had so discouraged 
most of their best members, that they sold their shares, and Charles 
I., on his accession to the throne, dissolved the company, and took 
the colony aito his own immediate direction. He appointed the 
governor and council himself, ordered all patents and processes to 
issue in his ovn name, and reserved a quit-rent of two shillings 
sterling for eveiy hundred acres." 

Thus far our author. Now it is impossible for us at this distance 
of time to say wiat were all the exact causes of the change ; 
neither have we any business with it. The company might sur- 
render it, or they might not, or they might forfeit it by not fulfilling 
conditions, or they mirht sell it, or the crown might, as far as we 
know, take it from them. But what are either of these cases to 
Virginia, or any other whish can be produced. She was not a 
party in the matter. It was not her charter, neither can she 
ingraft any right upon it, or suffer any injury under it. 



PUBLIC GOOD. 287 

If the charter was vacated, it must have been by the London 
company ; if it was surrendered, it must be by the same ; and if 
it was sold, nobody else could sell it ; and if it was taken from 
them, nobody else could lose it ; and yet Virginia calls this her 
charter, which it was not within her power to hold, to sell, to 
vacate, or to lose. 

But if she puts her right upon the ground that it never was sold, 
surrendered, lost, or vacated, by the London company, she admits 
that if they had sold, surrendered, lost, or vacated it, it would have 
become extinct, and to her no charter at all. And in this case, the 
only thing to prove is the fact, which is, has this charter been the 
rule of government, and of purchasing or procuring unappropriated 
lands in Virginia, from the time it was granted to the time of the 
revolution 1 Answer — the charter has not been the rule of go- 
vernment, nor of purchasing and procuring lands, neither has any 
lands been purchased or procured under its sanction or authority 
for upwards of 150 years. 

But if she goes a step further, and says, that they could not 
vacate, surrender, sell, or lose it, by any act they could do, so 
neither could they vacate, surrender, sell, or lose that of 1606, 
which was three years prior to this ; and this argument, so far 
from establishing the charter of 1609, would destroy it ; and in its 
stead confirm the preceding one, which limited the company to a 
square of 100 miles. And if she still goes back to that of Sir 
Walter Raleigh, that only places her in the light of Americans in 
common with all. 

The only fact that can be clearly proved i«, that the crown of 
England exercised the power of dominion and government in 
Virginia, and of the disposal of the lands, and that the charter had 
neither been the rule of government or purchasing land for up- 
wards of 150 years, and this places Virginia in succession to the 
crown, and not to the company. Consequently it proves a lapse 
of the charter into the hands of the crown by some means or 
other. 

Now to suppose that the charter could return into the hands of 
the crown and yet remain in force, is to suppose that a man could 
be bound by a bond of obligation to himself. 

Its very being in the hands of the crown, from which it issued, is 
a cessation of its existence ; and an effectual unchartering all that 
part of the grant which was not before disposed of. And cons©- 



288 PUBLIC GOOD. 

quently the state of Virginia, standing thus in succession to the 
crown, can be entitled to no more extent of country as a state 
under the union, than what it possessed as a province under the 
crown. And all lands exterior to these bounds, as well of Virginia 
as the rest of the states, devolve, in the order of succession, to the 
sovereignty of the United States, for the benefit of all. 

And this brings the case to what were the limits of Virginia as 
a province under the crown of England. 

Charter it had none. Its limits then rested at the disci etion of 
the authority to which it was subject. Maryland and Pennsylvania 
became its boundaiy to the eastward and northward, and North- 
Carolina to the southward, therefore the boundary to the westward 
was the only principal line to be ascertained. 

As Virginia from a proprietary soil and government was become 
what then bore the name of a royal one, the extent of the province, 
as the order of things then stood (for something must always be 
admitted whereon to form abegin\mg) was wholly at the disposal 
of the crown of England, who might enlarge or diminish, or erect 
new governments to 'lie westward, by the same authoritative right 
that Virginia now can divide a county into two, if too large, or too 
inconvenient. 

To say, as has been said, that Pennsylvania, Maryland, and 
North-Carolina, were taken out of Virginia, is no more than to 
say, they were taken out of America ; because Virginia was the 
common name of all the country, north and south ; and to say they 
were taken out of the chartered limits of Virginia, is likewise to 
say nothing ; because, after the dissolution or extinction of the pro- 
prietary company, there was nobody to whom any provincial limits 
became chartered. The extinction of the company was the 
extinction of the chartered limits. The patent could not survive 
the company, because it was to them a right, which, when they 
expired, ceased to be any body's else in their stead. 

But to return to the western boundary of Virginia at the com- 
mencement of the revolution. 

Charters, like proclamations, were the sole act of the crown, 
and if the former were adequate to fix limits to the lands which it 
gave away, sold, or otherwise disposed of, the latter were equally 
adequate to fix limits or divisions to those which it retained ; and 
therefore, the western limits of Virginia, as the proprietary com- 



PUBLIC GOOD. 289 

pany was extinct and consequently the patent with it, must be 
looked for in the line of proclamations. 

I am not fond of quoting these old remains of former arrogance, 

but a.*- e must begin somewhere, and as the states have agreed 

.:ulate the right of eaeh state to territory, by the condition 

stood in with the crown of England at the commencement 

of the revolution, we have no other rule to go by ; and any rule 

which can be agreed on is better than none. 

From the proclamation then of 1763, the western limits of Vir- 
ginia, as a province under the crown of England, arc described so 
ot to extend beyond the heads of any of the rivers which 
empty themselves into the Atlantic, and consequently the limits 
did not pass over the Allegany mountains. 

The fallow m- i- an extract from the proclamation of 17G3, so 
far as respects boundary ; 

•• \nd whereas, it is just and reasonable and essential toouh 
curity of our colonies, that the several nations 
or tribes of Indian-, with whom w , are connected, and who live 
under our protection, should not be molested or disturbed in the 
i of such parts of our dominions and territories, as, not 
honing been ceded to, or purchased by us, are reserved to llicm or 
ami of them as their hunting grounds ; we do therefore, with the 
advice of our privy council, declare it to be our royal will and 
ore thai no governor, or commander-in-chief, in any of our 
colonies of Quebec, Bast-Florida, or West-Florida, do presume 
upon any pretence whatever, to grant warrant--' of survey, or pass 
any patents for lands beyond the bounds of their respective go- 
vernments, a> described in their commissions : as also that 
no governor or commander-in-chief of our colonies or planta- 
tions in America, do presume, for the present, and until our 
further pleasure be known, to grant warrants of survey or pass 

patents for any lands beyond the heads or sources of any of the 
risers which fall into the . Ulantic ocean, from the vest or north- 
West, or upon anv lands whatever, which not having been ceded to, 
or purchased bij us, as aforesaid, are reserved unto the said 
Indians, or any of them. 

" And we do further declare it to be our royal will and pleasure, 
for the present, as aforesaid, to reserve under our sovereignty, 
protection, and dominion, for the use of the said Indians, all lands 

and territories, not included within the limits of our said three new 
vol. I. 37 



290 PUBLIC GOOD. 

governments, or within the limits of the territory granted to the 
Hudson's bay company ; as also, all the lands and territories 
lying to the westward of the sources of the rivers, which fall into 
the sea from the ivest and northwest, as aforesaid ; and we do 
hereby strictly forbid, on pain of our displeasure, all our loving 
subjects from making any purchases or settlements whatever, or 
taking possession of any of the lands above reserved, without our 
especial leave and license for that purpose first obtained. 

" And we do further strictly enjoin and require all persons what- 
ever, who have either willfully or inadvertently seated themselves 
upon any lands within the countries above described, or upon 
any other lands, which, not having been ceded to, or purchased 
by as, are still reserved to the said Indians, as aforesaid, forthwith 
to remove themselves from such settlements. " 

It is easy for us to understand, that the frequent and plausible 
mention of the Indians was only a pretext to create an idea of the 
humanity of government. The object and intention of the pro- 
clamation was the western boundary, which is here signified not 
to extend beyond the heads of the rivers : and these, then, are 
the western limits which Virginia had as a province under the 
crown of Britain. 

And agreeable to the intention of this proclamation, and the 
limits described thereby, lord Hillsborough, then secretary of slate 
in England, addressed an official letter, of the 31st of July, 1770, 
to lord Bottctourt, at that time governor of Virginia, which letter 
was laid before the council of Virginia by Mr. president Nelson, 
and by him answered on the 18th of October, in the same year, of 
which the following are extracts : 

" On the evening of the day your lordship's letter to the go- 
vernor was delivered to me (as it contains matters of great vanetv 
and importance) it was read in council, and, together with the 
several papers inclosed, it hath been maturely considered, and I 
now trouble your lordship with theirs as well as my own opinion 
upon the subject of them. 

" We do not presume to say to whom our gracious sovereign 
shall grant the vacant lands," and " with regard to the establish- 
ment of a new colony on the bach of Virginia, is a subject of too 
great political importance for me to presume to give an opinion 
upon, however, permit ine, mv lord, to observe, that when that 



PUBLIC GOOD. 291 

part of the country shall become sufficiently populated it may bo 
a wise and prudent measure." 

On the death of lord Bottctourt, lord Dunmore was appointed 
to the government, and he, either from ignorance of the subject, 
or oilier motives, made a grant of some lands on the Ohio to cer- 
tain of his friends and favorites, which produced the following 
letter from lord Dartmouth, who succeeded lord Hillsborough as 
tary of state : 
" I think fit to inclose your lordship a copy of lord Hillsborough's 
to lord Bottctourt, of the 31st of July, 1770, the receipt of 
which was acknowledged by Mr. president Nelson, a few days 

th, and appears by his answer to it, to 
been laid the council. That board, therefore, could 

■•: ignorant of what has passed here upon Mr. Walpole'8 ap- 
plication, nor of th land, contained in lord 
Hillsboro i no lands should be granted beyond the 
»yal pro lamati m of 1763, until the king's further 
: and I have only to obserre, that it must 
i a very extraordinary neglect in them not to have in- 
formed your lordship of that letter and those orders." 

Qn these documents I shall make no remarks. They are their 

own evidence, and show what the limits of Virginia were while a 

h province; and as there was then no other authority by 

which they could be fixed, and as the grant to the London com- 

pauv could DOt ho a grant to any hut the: and of conse- 

1 to ho when they cen it remained a 

ice in the crown, on sumption of the lands, 

to limit or divide them into sc; i nunents, as it judged 

which there \. rod could not, in the order of 

ut, be any appeal. Neither was Virginia, as a province, 

affected by it, because the monies, in any case, arising from the 

sale of lands, did not go into her treasury ; and whether to the 

crown or to the proprietors was to her indifferent. And it is like- 

wise evident, from the secretary's letter, and the president's 

answer, that it was in contemplation to lay out a new colony on 

the back of Virginia, between the Allegany mountains and the 

Ohio. 

Having thus gone through the several charters, or grants, and 
their relation to each other, and shown {hat Virginia cannot stand 
in succession to a private grant, which has been extinct for up- 



292 PUBLIC GOOD. 

wards of 150 years — and that the western limits of Virginia, at the 
commencement of the revolution, were at the heads of the rivers 
emptying themselves into the Atlantic, none of which are beyond 
the Allegany mountains; I now proceed to the second part, 
namely, 

The reasonableness of her claims. 

Virginia, as a British province, stood in a different situation with 
the crown of England to any of the other provinces, because she 
had no ascertained limits, but such as arose from laying off new 
provinces and the proclamation of 1763. For the same name, 
Virginia, as I have before mentioned, was the general name of all 
the country, and the dominion out of which the several govern- 
ments were laid off: and, in strict propriety, conformable to the 
origin of names, the province of Virginia was taken out of the 
dominion of Virginia. For the term, dominion, could not appertain 
to the province, which retained the name of Virginia, but to the 
crown, and from thence was applied to the whole country, and 
signified its being an appendage to the crown of England, as they 
say now, " our dominion of Wales." 

It is not possible to suppose there could exist an idea that 
Virginia, as a British province, was to be extended to the South 
sea, at the distance of three thousand miles. The dominion, as 
appertaining at that time to the crown, might be claimed to extend 
so far, but as a province the thought was not conceivable, nor the 
practice possible. 

And is it more than probable, that the deception made use of to 
obtain the patent of 1609, by representing the South sea to be 
near where the Allegany mountains are, was one cause of its be- 
coming extinct ; and it is worthy of remarking, that no history (at 
least that 1 have met with) mentions any dispute or litigation, be- 
tween the crown and the company, in consequence of the extinc- 
tion of the patent, and the re-assumption of the lands ; and, there- 
fore, the negative evidence corroborating with the positive, make 
it as certain as such a case can possibly be, that either the com 
pany received a compensation for the patent, or quitted it quietly, 
ashamed of the imposition they had practised, and their subsequent 
maladministration. Men are not inclined to give up a claim where 
there is any ground to contend upon, and the silence in which the 
patent expired, is a presumptive oroof that its fate, from whatever 
cause, was just. 



PUBLIC GOOD. 293 

There is one general policy which seems to have prevailed with 
the English in laying off new governments, which was, not to 
make them larger than their own country, that they might the 
easier hold them manageable : this was the case with every one 
except Canada, the extension of whose limits was for the politic 
purpose of recognizing new acquisitions of territory, not immedi- 
ately convenient for colonization. 

But, in order to give this matter a chance through all its cases, 
I will admit what no man can suppose, which is, that there is an 
English charter that fixes Virginia to extend from the Atlantic to 
the South sea, and contained within a due west line, set off two 
hundred miles below cape Comfort, and a northwest line, set off 
two hundred miles above it. Her side, then, on the Atlantic 
(according to an explanation given in Mr. Bradford's paper of 
Sept. 29, 1779, by an advocate for the Virginia claims) will be 
four hundred miles ; her side to the south three thousand : her 
side to the west four thousand ; and her northwest line about five 
thousand; and the quantity of land "contained within these 
dimensions will be almost four thousand millions of acres, which 
is more than ten times the quantity contained within the pre- 
sent United States, and above an hundred times greater than the 
kingdom of England. 

To reason on a case like this, is such a waste of time, and such 
an excess of folly, that it ought not to be reasoned upon. It is 
impossible to suppose that any patent to private persons could be 
so intentionally absurd, and the claim grounded thereon, is as wild 
as any thing the imagination of man ever conceived. 

But if, as I before mentioned, there was a charter which bore 
such an explanation, and Virginia stood in succession to it, what 
would that be to us, any more than the will of Alexander, had he 
taken it into his head to have bequeathed away the world ? Such 
a charter, or grant, must have been obtained by impc^uon and a 
false representation of the country, or granted in error, or both ; 
and in any of, or all these cases, the United States must reject the 
matter as something they • not know, for the merits will not 
bear an argument and the pretension of right stands upon no 
better ground. 

Our <hsc is an original one; and many matters attending it 
must be determined on their own merits and reasonableness. The 
territory of the rest of the states is, in general, within known 



294 PUBLIC GOOD. 

bounds of moderate extent, and the quota which each state is to 
furnish towards the expense and service of the war, must be as- 
certained upon some rule of comparison. The number of in- 
habitants of each state formed the first rule ; and it was naturally 
supposed that those numbers bore nearly the same proportion to 
each other, which the territory of each state did. Virginia on this 
scale, would be about one fifth larger than Pennsylvania, which 
would be as much dominion as any state could manage with 
happiness and convenience. 

When I first began this subject, my intention was to be exten- 
sive on the merits, and concise on the matter of the right ; instead 
of which, I have been extensive on the matter of right, and con- 
cise on the merits of reasonableness : and this alteration in my 
design arose, consequentially, from the nature of the subject; for 
as a reasonable thing the claim can be supported by no argument, 
and therefore, needs none to refute it ; but as there is a strange 
propensity in mankind to shelter themselves under the sanction of 
right, however unreasonable that supposed right might may be, I 
found it most conducive to the interest of the case, to show, that 
the right stands upon no better grounds than the reason. And 
shall therefore proceed to make some observations on the conse- 
quences of the claim. 

The claim being unreasonable in itself, and standing on no 
ground of right, but such as, if true, must, from the quarter it is 
drawn, be offensive, has a tendency to create disgust, and sour the 
minds of the rest of the states. Those lands are capable, under 
the management of the United States, of repaying the charges of 
the war, and some of them, as I shall hereafter show, may, I pre- 
sume, be made an immediate advantage of. 

I distinguish three different descriptions of land in America at 
the commencement of the revolution. Proprietary or chartered 
lands, as was the case in Pennsylvania ; crown lands, within the 
described limits of any of the crown governments ; and crown 
residuary lands, that were without or beyond the limits of any pro- 
vince ; and those last were held in reserve whereon to erect new 
governments, and lay out new provinces ; as appears to have been 
the design by lord Hillsborough's letter, and the president's 
inswer, wherein he says, " with respect to the establishment of a 
new colony on the back of Virginia, it is a subject of too great 
political importance for me to presume to give an opinion upon ; 



PUBLIC GOOD. 295 

however, permit me, my lord, to observe, that when that part of 
the country shall become populated, it may be a wise and prudent 
measure." 

The expression is, a " new colony on the back of Virginia ;" and 
referred to lands between the heads of the rivers and the Ohio. 
This is a proof that those lands were not considered within, but 
beyond the limits of Virginia, as a colony ; and the other expres- 
sion in the letter is equally descriptive, namely, " We do not 
'me to say, to whom our gracious sovereign shall grant his 
.:.' lands." Certainly then, the same right, which, at that 
time rested in the crown, rests now in the more supreme authori- 
ty of the United States ; and therefore, addressing the president's 
letter to the circumstances of the revolution, it will run thus : 

"We do not presume to Bay to whom the United 

ill grant their vacant lands, and with respect to the Bet- 
tlemenl of a new colony on me back of Virginia, it is a matter of 
tun much political importance for B6 to give an opinion upon ; 
however, permit me to observe, mat when that part of the country 
shall become populated it may be a wise and prudent measure.' 1 

1 1 must occur to every person, on reflection, that those lands aro 
too distant to bo within the government of any of the present 
states ; and, I may presume to suppose, that were a calculation 
justly made, Virginia has lost more by the decrease of taxables, 
than she has gained by what lands she has made sale of; there- 
fore, she is not only doing the rest of the states wrong in point of 
equity, but herself and them an injury in point of strength, service 
and revenue. 

It i- only the United States, and not any single state, that can 
lay off new states, and incorporate them in the union by repre- 
sentation ; therefore, the situation which the settlers on those lands 
will be in, under the assumed right of Virginia, will be hazardous 
and distressing, and they will feel themselves at last like the aliens 
to the commonwealth of Israel, their habitations unsafe and their 
title precarious. 

And when men reflect on that peace, harmony, quietude, and 
security, which is necessary to prosperity, especially in making 
new settlements, and think that when the war shall be ended, their 
happiness and safety will depend on a union with the states, and 
not a scattered people, unconnected with, and politically unknown 
to the rest, they will feel but little inclination to put themselves in 



296 PUBLIC GOOD. 

a situation, which, however solitary and recluse, it may appear at 
present, will then be uncertain and unsafe, and their troubles will 
have to begin where those of the United States shall end. 

It is probable that some of the inhabitants of Virginia may be 
inclined to suppose that the writer of this, by taking up the sub- 
ject in the manner he has done, is arguing unfriendly against their 
interest. To which he wishes to reply : 

That the most extraordinary part of the whole is, that Virginia 
should countenance such a claim. For it is worthy of observing, 
that, from the beginning of the contest with Britain, and long after, 
there was not a people in America who discovered, through all the 
variety and multiplicity of public business, a greater fund of true 
wisdom, fortitude, and disinterestedness, than the then colon) of 
Virginia. They were loved — They were reverenced. Their in- 
vestigation of the assumed rights of Britain had a sagacity which 
was uncommon. Their reasonings were pie' cing, difficult to be 
equalled and impossible to be refufp^!, and their public spirit was 
exceeded by none. But since th ; ^ unfortunate land scheme has 
taken place, their pow. rs seem to be absorbed; a torpor has 
overshaded them, and every one asks, What is become of Vir- 
ginia ? 

It seldom happens that the romantic schemes of extensive 
dominion are of any service to a government, and never to a 
people. They assuredly end at last in loss, trouble, division and 
disappointment. And was even the title of Virginia good, and 
the claim admissible, she would derive more lasting and real 
benefit by participating it, than by attempting the management of 
an object so infinitely beyond her reach. Her share with the rest, 
under the supremacy of the United States, which is the only au- 
thority adequate to the purpose, would be worth more to her than 
what the whole would produce under the management of herself 
alone. And that for several reasons : 

1st, Because her claim not being admissible nor yet manage- 
able, she cannot make a good title to the purchasers, and conse- 
quently can get but little for the lands. 

2d, Because the distance the settlers will be from her, will 
immediately put them out of all government and protection, so far, 
at least as relates to Virginia : and by this means she will render 
her frontiers a refuge to desperadoes, and a hiding place from 



PUBLIC GOOD. 297 

justice ; and the consequence will be perpetual unsafety to her 
own peace, and that of the neighboring states. 

3d, Because her quota of expense for carrying on the war, ad- 
mitting her to engross such an immensity of territory, would be 
greater than she can either support or supply, and could not be 
less, upon a reasonable rule of proportion, than nine-tenths of the 
whole. And, 

4th, Because she must sooner or later relinquish them ; there- 
fore to see her own interest wisely at first, is preferable to the 
alternative of finding it out by misfortune at last. 

I have now gone through my examination of the claim of Vir- 
ginia, in every case which I proposed ; and, for several reasons, 
wish the lot had fallen to another person. 

But as this is a most important matter, in which all are inter- 
ested, and the substantial good of Virginia not injured but 
promoted, and as few men have leisure, and still fewer have 
inclination, to go into intricate investigation, I have at last 
ventured on the subject. 

The succession of the United States to the vacant Western 
territory is a right they originally sat out upon ; and in the pamphlet 
Common Sense, I frequently mentioned those lands as a national 
fund for the benefit of all ; therefore, resuming the subject where 
I then left off, I shall conclude with concisely reducing to system 
what I then only hinted. 

In my last piece, the Crisis No. XVI., I estimated the annual 
amount of the charge of war and the support of the several 
governments at two million pounds sterling, and the peace esta- 
blishment at three quarters of a million, and, by a comparison of 
the taxes of this country with those of England, proved that the 
whole yearly expense to us, to defend the country, is but a third 
of what Britain would have drawn from us by taxes, had she suc- 
ceeded in her attempt to conquer : and our peace establishment 
only an eighth part ; and likewise showed, that it was within the 
ability of the states to carry on the whole of the war by taxation, 
without having recourse to any other modes or funds. To have a 
clear idea of taxation is necessary to every country, and the more 
funds we can discover and organize, the less will be the hope of 
the enemy, and the readier their disposition to peace, which it is 
now their interest more than ours to promote. 

vol I. 38 



298 PUBLIC GOOD. 

I have already remarked, that only the United States, and not 
any particular state, can lay off new states and incorporate them 
into the union by representation ; keeping, therefore, this idea in 
view, I ask, might not a substantial fund be quickly created by 
laying off a new state, so as to contain between twenty and thirty 
millions of acres, and opening a land-office in all countries in 
Europe for hard money, and in this country for supplies in kind, at 
a certain price. 

The tract of land that seems best adapted to answer this pur- 
pose is contained between the Allegany mountains and the river 
Ohio, as far north as the Pennsylvania line, thence extending 
down the said river to the falls thereof, thence due south into the 
latitude of the North- Carolina line, and thence east to the Allegany 
mountains aforesaid. I the more readily mention this tract, be- 
cause it is righting the enemy with their own weapons, as it in- 
cludes the same ground on which a new colony would have been 
erected, for the emolument of the crown of England, as appears 
by the letters of lords Hillsborough and Dartmouth, had not the 
revolution prevented its being carried into effect. 

It is probable that there may be some spots of private property 
within this tract, but to incorporate them into some government 
will render them more profitable to the owners, and the condition 
of the scattered settlers more eligible and happy than at pre- 
sent. 

If twenty millions of acres of this new state be patented and 
sold at twenty pounds sterling per hundred acres, they will pro- 
duce four million pounds sterling, which, if applied to continental 
expenses only, will support the war for three years, should Britain 
be so unwise as to prosecute it against her own direct interest 
and against the interest and policy of all Europe. The several 
states will then have to raise taxes for their internal government 
only, and the continental taxes, as soon as the fund begins to 
operate, will lessen, and if sufficiently productive, will cease. 

Lands are the real riches of the habitable world, and the natural 
funds of America. The funds of other countries are, in general, 
artificially constructed ; the creatures of necessity and contrivance; 
dependant upon credit, and always exposed to hazard and un- 
certainty. But lands can neither be annihilated nor lose their 
value ; on the contrary, they universally rise with population, and 
rapidly so, when under the security of effectual government. But 



PUBLIC GOOD. 299 

this It is impossible for Virginia to give, and therefore, that which 
is capable of defraying the expenses of the empire, will, under 
the management of any single state, produce only a fugitive sup- 
port to wandering individuals. 

I shall now inquire into the effects which the laying out a 
new state, under the authority of the United States, will have 
upon Virginia. 

It is the very circumstance she ought to, and must, wish 
for, when she examines the matter in all its bearings and con 
sequences. 

The present settlers beyond her reach, and her supposed au 
thority over them remaining in herself, they will appear to her as 
revolters, and she to them as oppressors ; and this will produce 
such a spirit of mutual dislike, that in a little time a total dis 
agreement will take place, to the disadvantage of both. 

But under the authority of the United States the matter id 
manageable, and Virginia will be eased of a disagreeable con- 
sequence. 

Besides this, a sale of the lands, continentally, for the pur 
pose of supporting the expense of the war, will save her a 
greater share of taxes, than the small sale which she could 
make herself, and the small price she could get for them would 
produce. 

She would likewise have two advantages which no other state 
in the union enjoys ; first, a frontier state for her defence against 
the incursions of the Indians ; and the second is, that the laying 
out and peopling a new state on the back of an old one, situated 
as she is, is doubling the quantity of its trade. 

The new state which is here proposed to be laid out, may send 
its exports down the Mississippi, but its imports must come 
through Chesapeake bay, and consequently Virginia will become 
the market for the new state ; because, though there is a naviga- 
tion from it, there is none into it, on account of the rapidity of 
the Mississippi. 

There are certain circumstances that will produce certain 
events whether men think of them or not. The events do not 
depend upon thinking, but are the natural consequence of acting ; 
and according to the system which Virginia has gone upon, the 
issue will be, that she will get involved with the back settlers in a 
contention about rights, till they dispute with their own claims ; 



300 PUBLIC GOOD. 

and, soured by the contention, will go to any other state for their 
commerce ; both of which may be prevented, a perfect harmony 
established, the strength of the states increased, and the expenses 
of the war defrayed, by settling the matter now on the plan ot 
a general right ; and every day it is delayed, the difficulty will be 
increased and the advantages lessened. 

But if it should happen, as it possibly may, that the war should 
end before the money, which the new state may produce, be ex- 
pended, the remainder of the lands therein may be set apart to 
reimburse those, whose houses have been burnt by the enemy, as 
this is a species of suffering which it was impossible to prevent, 
because houses are not moveable property ; and it ought not to 
be, that because we cannot do every thing, that we ought not to 
do what we can. 

Having said this much on the subject, I think it necessary to 
remark, that the prospect of a new fund, so far from abating our 
endeavors in making every immediate provision for the army, 
ought to quicken us therein ; for should the states see it expe- 
dient to go upon the measure, it will be at least a year before it 
can be productive. I the more freely mention this, because there 
is a dangerous species of popularity, which, I fear, some men are 
seeking from their constituents by giving them grounds to believe, 
that if they are elected they will lighten the taxes ; a measure, 
which in the present state of things, cannot be done without ex- 
posing the country to the ravages of the enemy by disabling the 
army from defending it. 

Where knowledge is a duty, ignorance is a crime ; and if any 
man whose duty it was to know better, has encouraged such 
an expectation, he has either deceived himself or them : besides 
no country can be defended without expense, and let any man 
compare his portion of temporary inconveniences arising from 
taxation, with the real distresses of the army for the want oi 
supplies, and the difference is not only sufficient to strike him 
dumb, but make him thankful that worse consequences have not 
followed. 

In advancing this doctrine, I speak with an honest freedom 
to the country ; for as it is their good to be defended, so it is 
their interest to provide that defence, at least, till other funds can 
be organized. 



PUBLIC GOOD. 301 

As the laying out new states will some time or other be the 
business of the country, and as it is yet a new business to us, 
and as the influence of the war has scarcely afforded leisure for 
reflecting on distant circumstances, I shall throw together a few 
hints for facilitating that measure whenever it may be proper for 
adopting it. 

The United States now standing on the line of sovereignty, the 
vacant territory is their property collectively, but the persons by 
whom it may hereafter be peopled will also have an equal right 
with ourselves ; and therefore, as new states shall be laid off and 
incorporated with the present, they will become partakers of the 
remaining territory with us who are already in possession. And 
this consideration ought to heighten the value of lands to new 
emigrants : because, in making the purchases, they not only gain 
an immediate property, but become initiated into the right and 
heirship of the states to a property in reserve, which is an addi 
tional advantage to what any purchasers under the late govern 
ment of England enjoyed. 

The setting off the boundary of any new state will naturally 
De the first step, and as it must be supposed not to be peopled 
at the time it is laid off, a constitution must be formed by the 
United States, as the rule of government in any new state, for a 
certain term of years (perhaps ten) or until the state becomes 
peopled to a certain number of inhabitants ; after which, the 
whole and sole right of modelling their government to rest with 
themselves. 

A question may arise, whether a new state should immediately 
possess an equal right wnh trie present ones in all cases which 
may come before congress. 

This, experience will best determine ; but at a first view of 
the matter it appears thus ; that it ought to be immediately incor- 
porated into the union on the ground of a family right, such a 
state standing in the line of a younger child of the same stock ; 
but as new emigrants will have something to learn when they first 
come to America, and a new state requiring aid rather than capa- 
ble of giving it, it might be most convenient to admit its imme- 
diate representation into congress, there to sit, hear and debate 
on all questions and matters, but not to vote on any till after the 
expiration of seven years. 






302 PUBLIC GOOD. 



I shall in this place take the opportunity of renewing a hint 
which I formerly threw out in the pamphlet Common Sense, and 
which the several states will, sooner or later, see the convenience 
if not the necessity of adopting ; which is, that of electing a con- 
tinental convention, for the purpose of forming a continental 
constitution, defining and describing the powers and authority of 
congress. 

Those of entering into treaties, and making peace, they natu 
rally possess, in behalf of the states, for their separate as well as 
their united good, but the internal control and dictatorial powers 
of congress are not sufficiently defined, and appear to be too 
much in some cases and too little in others ; and therefore, to 
have them marked out legally will give additiona energy to the 
whole, and a new confidence to the several parts 



KND OF PUBLTC GOOD 



LETTER 

TO THE 

ABBE RAYNAL, 

ON THE AFFAIRS OF NORTH AMERICA: 

IN WHICH 

THE MISTAKES IN THE ABBE'S ACCOUNT 

or THE 

REVOLUTION OF AMERICA 

ARE CORRECTED AND CLEARED UP. 



INTRODUCTION. 



A London translation of an original work in French, by the 
abbe Raynal, which treats of the revolution of North-America, 
having been re-printed in Philadelphia and other parts of the 
continent, and as the distance at which the abbe is placed from 
the American theatre of war and politics, has occasioned him to 
mistake several facts, or misconceive the causes or principles 
by which they were produced, the following tract, therefore, is 
published with a \< mV them, and prevent even acciden- 

tal errors from intermixing with history, under the sanction of 
time and silence. 

The editor of the London edition has entitled it, " The Revo- 
lulion of America, by the abbe Raynai," and the American 
printers have followed the example* lint I have understood, and 
I believe' my information just, that the piece, win ;h is more pro- 
perly reflections on the revolution, was unfairly purloined from 
the printer whom the abbe employed, or from the manuscript 
copy, and is only part of a larger work then in the press, or 
preparing for it. The person who procured it, appears to have 
been an Englishman, and though, in an advertisement prefixed 
to the London edition, he has endeavoured to gloss over the 
embezzlement with professions of patriotism, and to soften it 
with high encomiums on the author, yet the action in any view 
in which it can be placed, is illiberal and unpardonable. 

" In the course of his travels," says he, " the translator hap- 
pily succeeded in obtaining a copy of this exquisite little piece 

vol. i. 39 * 



306 INTRODUCTION. 

which has not made its appearance from any press. He pub 
lishes a French edition, in favor of those who feel its eloquent 
reasoning more forcibly in its native language, at the same time 
with the following translation of it ; in which he has been desir- 
ous, perhaps in vain, that all the warmth, the grace, the strength, 
the dignity of the original, should not be lost. And he flatters 
himself, that the indulgence of the illustrious historian will not 
be wanting to a man, who, of his own motion, has taken the 
liberty to give this composition to the public, only from a strong 
persuasion, that its momentous argument will be useful in a cri- 
tical conjuncture, to that country which he loves with an ardor, 
that can be exceeded only by the nobler flame, which burns in 
the bosom of the philanthropic author, for the freedom and happi- 
ness of all the countries upon earth." 

This plausibility of setting off a dishonorable action, may pass 
for patriotism and sound principles with those who do not enter 
into its demerits, and whose interest is not injured nor their 
happiness affected thereby. But it is more than probable, not- 
withstanding the declarations it contains, that the copy was 
obtained for the sake of profiting by the sale of a new and popu- 
lar work, a.nd that the professions are but a garb to the fraud. 

It may with propriety be marked, that in all countries where 
literature is protected, and it never can flourish where it is not, 
the works of an author are his legal property; and to treat letters 
in any other light than this, is to banish them from the country, 
or strangle them in the birth. — The embezzlement from the 
abbe Raynal, was, it is true, committed by one country upon 
another, and therefore shows no defect in the laws of either. 
But it is nevertheless a breach of civil manners and literary jus- 
tice : neither can it be any apology, that because the countries 
are at war, literature shall be entitled to depredation.* 



* The state of literature in America must one day become a subject of legis- 
lative consideration. Hitherto it hath been a disinterested volunteer in the 
seivice of the revolution, and no man thought of profits : but when peace 
shall give time and opportunity for study, the country will deprive itself of 
the honor and service of letters and the improvement of science, unless suffi- 
cient laws are made to prevent depredations on literary property. It is well 
worth remarking, that Russia, who but a few years ago was scarcely known 
in Europe, owes a large share of her present greatness to the close attention 
she has paid, and the wise encouragement she has given, to every branch of 
science and learning : and we have almost the same instance in France, in 
the reign of Louis "XIV. 



INTRODUCTION. 307 

But the forestalling the abbe's publication by London editions, 
both in French and English, and thereby not only defrauding him 
and throwing an expensive publication on his hands by anticipa- 
ting the sale, are only the smaller injuries which such conduct 
may occasion. A man's opinions, whether written or in thought, 
are his own, until he pleases to publish them himself; and it is 
adding cruelty to injustice, to make him the author of what 
future reflection, or better information, might occasion him to 
suppress or amend. There are declarations and sentiments in 
the abbe's piece which, for my own part, I did not expect to find, 
and such as himself, on a revisal, might have seen occasion to 
change; but the anticipated piracy effectually prevented his hav- 
ing the opportunity, and precipitated him into difficulties, which, 
had it not been lor such ungenerous fraud, might not have hap- 
pened. 

This mode of making an author appear before his time, will 
appear still more ungenerous, when we. consider how very few 
there are in any country, who can at once, and without the 
aid of reflection and revisal, combine warm passions with a cool 
temper, and the full expansion of the imagination with the natu- 
ral and necessary gravity of judgment, so as to be rightly ba- 
lanced within themselves, and to make a reader feel, fancy, and 
understand justly at the same time. To call three powers of the 
mind into action at once, in a manner that neither shall interrupt, 
and that each shall aid and invigorate the other, is a talent very 
rarely possessed* 

It often happens that the weight of an argument is lost by the 
wit of setting it off; or the judgment disordered by an intempe- 
rate irritation of the passions : yet a certain degree of animation 
must be felt by the writer, and raised in the reader, in order to 
interest the attention ; and a sufficient scope given to the imagi- 
nation, to enable it to create in the mind a sight of the persons, 
characters and circumstances of the subject : for without these, 
the judgment will feci little or no excitement to office, and its 
determinations will be cold, sluggish, and imperfect. But if 
either or both of the two former are raised too high, or heated 
too much, the judgment will be jostled from its seat, and the whole 
matter, however important in itself, will diminish into a panto- 
mime of the mind, in which we create images that promote no 
other purpose than amusement. 



30S INTRODUCTION. 

The abbe's writings bear evident marks of that extension and 
rapidness of thinking and quickness of sensation, which of all 
others require revisal, and the more particularly so, when applied 
to the living characters of nations or individuals in a state of 
war. The least misinformation or misconception leads to some 
wrong conclusion, and an error believed, becomes the progenitor 
of others. And, as the abbe has suffered some inconveniences 
in France, by mistaking certain circumstances of the war, and 
the characters of the parties therein, it becomes some apology 
for him that those errors were precipitated into the world by the 
avarice of an ungenerous enemy. 



LETTER TO ABBE RAYNAL. 



»o|o« 



To an author of such distinguished reputation as the abbe 
Raynal, it might very well become me to apologize for the pre- 
sent undertaking ; but, as to be right is the first wish of philoso- 
phy, and the first principle of history, he will, I presume, accept 
from me a declaration of my motives, which are those of doing 
justice, in preference to any complimental apology I might 
otherwise make. The abbe, in the course of his work, has, in 
some instances, extolled without a reason, and wounded without 
a cause. He has given fame where it was not deserved, and 
withheld it where it was justly due ; and appears to be so fre- 
quently in and out of temper with his subjects and parties, that 
few or none of them are decisively and uniformly marked. 

It is yet too soon to write the history of the revolution, and 
whoever attempts it precipitately, will unavoidably mistake char- 
acters and circumstances, and involve himself in error and diffi- 
culty. Things, like men, are seldom understood rightly at first 
sight. But the abbe is wrong even in the foundation of his 
work ; that is, he has misconceived and mis-stated the causes 
which produced the ruptu re between England and her then colo- 
nies, and which led on, step by step, unstudied and uncontrived 
on the part of America, to a revolution, which has engaged the 
attention, and affec'.ed the interest of Europe. 

To prove this, I shall bring forward a passage, which, though 
placed towards the latter part of the abbe's work, is more inti- 



310 LETTER TO ABBE RAYNAL. 

mately connected with the beginning ; and in which, speaking of 
the original cause of the dispute, he declares himself in the fol- 
lowing manner — 

" None," says he, " of those energetic causes, which have 
produced so many revolutions upon the globe, existed in North- 
America. Neither religion nor laws had there been outraged. 
The blood of martyrs or patriots had not there streamed from 
scaffolds. Morals had not there been insulted. Manners, cus- 
toms, habits, no object dear to nations, had there been the sport 
of ridicule. Arbitrary power had not there torn any inhabitant 
from the arms of his family and friends, to drag him to a dreary 
dungeon. Public order had not been there inverted. The prin- 
ciples of administration had not been changed there ; and the 
maxims of government had there always remained the same. 
The whole question was reduced to the knowing whether the 
mother country had, or had not, a right to lay, directly or indi- 
rectly, a slight tax upon the colonies. " 

On this extraordinary passage, it may not be improper, in gen- 
eral terms, to remark, that none can feel like those who suffer ; 
and that for a man to be a competent judge of the provocatives, 
or as the abbe styles them, the energetic causes of the revolution, 
he must have resided at the time in America. 

The abbe, in saying that the several particulars he has enu- 
merated, did not exist in America, and neglecting to point out the 
particular period, in which he means they did not exist, reduces 
thereby his declaration to a nullity, by taking away all meaning 
from the passage. 

They did not exist in 1763, and they all existed before 1776 ; 
consequently as there was a time when they did not, and an- 
other, when they did exist, the time when constitutes the essence 
of the fact, and not to give it, is to withhold the only evidence 
which proves the declaration right or wrong, and on which it 
must stand or fall. But the declaration as it now appears, unac- 
companied by time, has an effect in holding out to the world, 
that there was no real cause for the revolution, because it denies 
the existence of all those causes, which are supposed to be justi- 
fiable, and which the abbe styles energetic. 

I confess myself exceedingly at a loss to find out the time to 
which the abbe alludes ; because, in another part of the work, in 
speaking of the stamp act, which was passed in 1764, he styles it 



LETTER TO ABBE RAYNAL. 311 

" an usurpation of the Americans' most precious and sacred 
rights" Consequently he here admits the most energetic of all 
causes, that is,. cm usurpation of their most precious and sacred 
rights, to have existed in America twelve years before the decla- 
ration of independence, and ten years before the breaking out of 
hostilities. The time, therefore, in which the paragraph is true, 
must be antecedent to the stamp act, but as at that time there 
was no revolution, nor any idea of one, it consequently applies 
without a meaning ; and as it cannot, on the abbe's own prin- 
ciple, be applied to any time after the stamp act, it is therefore a 
wandering solitary paragraph, connected with nothing and at va- 
riance with every thing. 

The stamp act, it is (rue, was repealed in two years after it was 
passed, but it was immediately followed by one of infinitely more 
mischievous magnitude ; I mean the declaratory act, which as- 
serted the right, as it wtm Btyled, of the British parliament, " to 
bind America in ail cases whatsoever, 99 

[fthen the stamp net was an usurpation of the Americans' most 
precious and sacred rights, the declaratory act left them no rights 
at all ; and contained the full grown seeds of the most despotic 
government ever exercised in the world. It placed America not 
only in the lowest, but in the basest state of vassalage ; because 
it demanded an unconditional submission in every thing, or as 
the act expresses it, in all cases whatsoever : and what renders 
this act the more offensive, is, that it appears to have been passed 
as an act of mercy ; truly then may it be said, that the tender 
mercies of the wicked are cruel. 

All the original charters from the crown of England, under the 
faith of which the adventurers from the old world settled in the 
new, were by this act displaced from their foundations ; because, 
contrary to the nature of them, which was that of a compact, they 
were now made subject to repeal or alteration at the mere will of 
one party only. The whole condition of America was thus put 
into the hands of the parliament or ministry, without leaving to 
her the least right in any case whatsoever. 

There is no despotism to which this iniquitous law did not ex- 
tend ; and though it might have been convenient in the execution 
of it, to have consulted manners and habits, the principle of the 
act made all tyranny legal. It stopped no where. It went to 
everv thing. It took in with it the whole life of a man, or if I 



312 LETTER TO ABBE RAYNAL. 

may so express it, an eternity of circumstances. It is the nature 
of law to require obedience, but this demanded servitude ; and 
the condition of an American, under the operation of it, was not 
♦hat of a subject, but a vassal. Tyranny has often been estab- 
lished without law and sometimes against it, but the history of 
mankind does not produce another instance, in which it has been 
established by law. It is an audacious outrage upon civil gov- 
ernment, and cannot be too much exposed, in order to be suffi- 
ciently detested. 

Neither could it be said after this, that the legislature of that 
country any longer made laws for this, but that it gave out com- 
mands ; for wherein differed an act of parliament constructed on 
this principle, and operating in this manner, over an unrepresent- 
ed people, from the orders of a military establishment. 

The parliament of England, with respect to America, was not 
septennial but perpetual. It appeared to the latter a body always 
in being. Its election or expiration were to her the same as if 
its members succeeded by inheritance, or went out by death, or 
lived for ever, or were appointed to it as a matter of office, 
Therefore, for the people of England to have any just conception 
of the mind of America, respecting this extraordinary act, they 
must suppose all election and expiration in that country to cease 
for ever, and the present parliament, its heirs, &c. to be perpet- 
ual ; in this case, I ask, what would the most clamorous of them 
think, were an act to be passed, declaring the right of such a par- 
liament to bind them in all cases whatsoever ? For this word 
whatsoever would go as effectually to their magna charta, bill of 
rights, trial by juries, fyc. as it went to the charters and forms of 
government in America. 

I am persuaded, that the gentleman to whom I address these 
remarks, will not, after the passing this act, say, " that the prin- 
ciples of administration had not been changed in America, and 
that the maxims of government had there been always the same. 
For here is, in principle, a total overthrow of the whole ; and not 
a subversion only, but an annihilation of the foundation of liberty, 
and absolute domination established in its stead. 

The abbe likewise states the case exceedingly wrong and inju- 
riously, when he says, " that the whole question was reduced to 
the knowing whether the mother country had, or had not, a right 
to lay, directly or indirectly, a slight tax upon the colonies." 



LETTER TO ABBE RAYNAL. 313 

This was not the whole of the question ; neither was the quantity 
of the tax the object either to the ministry or to the Americans. 
It was the principle, of which the tax made but a part, and the 
quantity still less, that formed the ground on which America re- 
sisted. 

The tax on tea, which is the tax here alluded to, was neither 
more nor less than an experiment to establish the practice of the 
declaratory law upon ; modelled into the more fashionable phrase 
of the universal supremacy of parliament. For until this time the 
declaratory law had lain dormant, and the framers of it had con- 
tented themselves with barely declaring an opinion. 

Therefore the whole question with America, in the opening of 
the dispute, was, shall we be bound in all cases whatsoever by the 
British parliament, or shall we not? For submission to the tea 
or tax act implied an acknowledgment of the declaratory act, or, 
in other words, of the universal supremacy of parliament, which 
M they never intended to do, it was necessary they should op- 
pose it, in its first stage of execution. 

It is probable the abbe has been led into this mistake by pe- 
rusing detached pieces in some of the American newspapers ; 
for, in a case where all were interested, every one had a right to 
give his opinion ; and there were many, who, with the best inten- 
tions, did not choose the best, nor indeed the true ground, to de- 
fend their cause upon. They felt themselves right by a general 
impulse, without being able to separate, analyze and arrange the 
parts. 

I am somewhat unwilling to examine too minutely into the 
whole of this extraordinary passage of the abbe, lest I should 
appear to treat it with severity ; otherwise I could show that not 
a single declaration is justly founded : for instance, the reviving 
an obsolete act of the reign of Henry VIII. and fitting it to the 
Americans, by authority of which they were to be seized and 
brought from America to England, and there imprisoned and 
tried for any supposed offences, was, in the worst sense of the 
words, to tear them, by the arbitrary power of parliament, from 
the arms of their families and friends, and drag them not only to 
dreary but distant dungeons. Yet this act was contrived some 
years before the breaking out of hostilities. And again, though 
the blood of martyrs and patriots had not streamed on the scaf* 

vol. i. 40 



314 LETTER TO ABBE RAYNAL. 

folds, it streamed in the streets, in the massacre of the inhabitants 
of Boston, by the British soldiery in the year 1770. 

Had the abbe said that the causes which produced the revolu- 
tion in America were originally different from those which pro- 
duced revolutions in other parts of the globe, he had been rignt. 
Here the value and quality of liberty, the nature of government, 
and the dignity of man, were known and understood, and the at- 
tachment of the Americans to these principles produced the re- 
volution, as a natural and almost unavoidable consequence. They 
had no particular family to set up or pull down. Nothing of per- 
sonality was incorporated with their cause. They started even- 
handed with each other, and went no faster into the several stages 
of it, than they were driven by the unrelenting and imperious 
conduct of Britain. Nay, in the last act, the declaration of in- 
dependence, they had nearly been too late ; for had it not been 
declared at the exact time it was, I see no period in their affairs 
since, in which it could have been declared with the same effect, 
and probably not at all. 

But the object being formed before the reverse of fortune took 
place, that is, before the operations of the gloomy campaign of 
1776, their honor, their interest, their every thing, called loudly 
on them to maintain it ; and that glow of thought and energy of 
heart, which even a distant prospect of independence inspires, 
gave confidence to their hopes, and resolution to their conduct, 
which a state of dependance could never have reached. They 
looked forward to happier days and scenes of rest, and qualified 
the hardships of the campaign by contemplating the establish- 
ment of their new born system. 

If, on the other hand, we take a review of what part Britain has 
acted, we shall find every thing which ought to make a nation 
blush. The most vulgar abuse, accompanied by that species of 
haughtiness which distinguishes the hero of a mob from the 
character of a gentleman ; it was equally as much from her man- 
ners as from her injustice that she lost the colonies. By the 
latter she provoked their principles, by the former she wore out 
their temper ; and it ought to be held out as an example to the 
world, to show how necessary it is to conduct the business of 
government with civility. In short, other revolutions may have 
originated in caprice, or generated in ambition ; but here, the 



LETTER TO ABBE RAYNAL 315 

most unoffending humility was tortured into rage, and the in- 
fancy of existence made to weep. 

A union so extensive, continued and determined, suffering 
with patience and never in despair, could not have been produced 
by common causes. It must be something capable of reaching 
the whole soul of man and arming it with perpetual energy. It 
is in vain to look for precedents among the revolutions of former 
ages, to find out, by comparison, the causes of this. The spring, 
the progress, the object, the consequences, nay, the men, their 
habits of thinking, and all the circumstances of the country are 
different. Those of other nations are, in general, little more 
than the history of their quarrels. They are marked by no im- 
portant character in the annals of events ; mixed in the mass of 
ral matters, they occupy but a common page ; and while the 
chief of the successful partisans stepped into power, the plun- 
dered multitude sat down and sorrowed. Few, very few of them 
are accompanied with reformation, either in government or man- 
ners ; many of them with the most consummate profligacy. 
Triumph on the one side and misery on the other were the only 
events. Pains, punishments, torture, and death were made the 
business of mankind, until compassion, the fairest associate of 
the heart, was driven from its place, and the eye, accustomed to 
continual cruelty, could behold it without offence. 

Jiut as the principles of the present revolution differed from 
those which preceded it, so likewise did the conduct of America 
both in government and war. Neither the foul finger of dis- 
grace nor the bloody hand of vengeance has hitherto put a blot 
upon her fame. Her victories have received lustre from a great- 
ness of lenity ; and her laws have been permitted to slumber, 
where they might justly be awakened to punish. War, so much 
the trade of the world, has here been only the business of neces- 
sity ; and when the necessity shall cease, her very enemies must 
confess, that as she drew the sword in her just defence, she used 
it without cruelty, and sheathed it without revenge. 

As it is not my design to extend these remarks to a history, I 
shall now take my leave of this passage of the abbe, with an ob- 
servation, which until something unfolds itself to convince me 
otherwise, I cannot avoid believing to be true ; — which is, that it 
was the fixed determination of the British cabinet to quarrel with 
America at all events. 



316 LETTER TO ABBE RAYNAL. 

They (the members who composed the cabinet) had no doubt 
of success, if they could once bring it to the issue of a battle, and 
they expected from a conquest, what they could neither propose 
with decency, nor hope for by negotiation. The charters and 
constitutions of the colonies were become to them matters of 
offence, and their rapid progress in property and population were 
disgustingly beheld as the growing and natural means of inde- 
pendence. They saw no way to retain them long but by reduc- 
ing them in time. A conquest would at once have made them 
both lords and landlords ; and put them in the possession both 
of the revenue and the rental. The whole trouble of govern- 
ment would have ceased in a victory, and a final end be put to 
remonstrance and debate. The experience of the stamp act, 
had taught them how to quarrel with the advantages of cover and 
convenience, and they had nothing to do but to renew the scene, 
and put contention into motion. They hoped for a rebellion, and 
they made one. They expected a declaration of independence, 
and they were not disappointed. But after this, they looked for 
victory, and they obtained a defeat. 

If this be taken as the generating cause of the contest, then is 
every part of the conduct of the British ministry consistent from 
the commencement of the dispute, until the signing the treaty of 
Paris, after which, conquest becoming doubtful, they retreated to 
negotiation, and were again defeated. 

Though the abbe possesses and displays great powers of 
genius, and is a master of style and language, he seems not to 
pay equal attention to the office of an historian. His facts are 
coldly and carelessly stated. They neither inform the reader 
nor interest him. Many of them are erroneous, and most of 
them are defective and obscure. It is undoubtedly both an or- 
nament and a useful addition to history, to accompany it with 
maxims and reflections. They afford likewise an agreeable 
change to the style, and a more diversified manner of expression ; 
but it is absolutely necessary that the root from whence they 
spring, or the foundation on which they are raised, should be well 
attended to, which in this work is not. The abbe hastens 
through his narrations as if he was glad to get from them, that he 
may enter the more copious field of eloquence and imagination. 

The actions of Trenton and Princeton, in New-Jersey, in 
December 1776, arid January following, on which the fate of 



LETTER TO ABBE RAYNAL. 317 

America stood for a while trembling on the point of suspense, 
and from which the most important consequences followed, are 
comprised within a single paragraph, faintly conceived, and bar- 
ren of character, circumstance and description. 

" On the 25th of December," says the abbe, " they (the Ame- 
ricans) crossed the Delaware, and fell accidentally upon Trenton, 
which was occupied by fifteen hundred of the twelve thousand 
Hessians, sold in so base a manner by their avaricious master, 
to the king of Great-Britain. This corps was massacred, taken, 
or dispersed. Eight days after, three English regiments were, 
in like manner, driven from Princeton, but after having better 
supported their reputation than the foreign troops in their pay." 

This is all the account which is given of these interesting 
events. The abbe has preceded them by two or three pages on 
the military operations of both armies, from the time of general 
Howe's arriving before New- York from Halifax, and the vast 
reinforcements of British and foreign troops with lord Howe 
from England. But in these, there is so much mistake, and so 
many omissions, that, to set them right, must be the business of 
a history and not of a letter. The action of Long-Island is but 
barely hinted at, and the operations at the White-plains wholly 
omitted : as are likewise the attack and loss of fort Washington, 
with a garrison of about two thousand five hundred men, and the 
precipitate evacuation of fort Lee, in consequence thereof: which 
losses were in a great measure the cause of the retreat through 
the Jerseys to the Delaware, a distance of about ninety miles. 
Neither is the manner of the retreat described ; which, from the 
season of the year, the nature of the country, the nearness of the 
two armies (sometimes within sight and shot of each other, for 
such a length of way) the rear of the one employed in pulling 
down bridges, and the van of the other in building them up, must 
necessarily be accompanied with many interesting circumstances. 

It was a period of distresses. A crisis rather of danger than 
of hope. There is no description can do it justice ; and even 
the actors in it, looking back upon the scene, are surprised how 
they got through ; and at a loss to account for those powers of 
the mind, and springs of animation, by which they withstood the 
force of accumulated misfortune. 

It was expected, that the time for which the army was enlisted, 
would carry the campaign so far into the winter, that the severity 



318 LETTER TO ABBE RAYNAL. 

of the season, and the consequent condition of the roads, would 
prevent any material operation of the enemy, until the new army 
could be raised for the next year. And I mention it, as a matter 
worthy of attention, by all future historians, that the movements 
of the American army, until the attack upon the Hessian post a» 
Trenton, the 26th of December, are to be considered as opera- 
ting to effect no other principal purpose than delay, and to wear 
away the campaign under all the disadvantages of an unequal 
force, with as little misfortune as possible. 

But the loss of the garrison at fort Washington on the 16th of 
November, and the expiration of the time of a considerable part 
of the army, so early as the 30th of the same month, and which 
was to be followed by almost daily expirations afterwards, made 
retreat the only final expedient. To these circumstances may 
be added the forlorn and destitute condition of the few that re- 
mained ; for the garrison of fort Lee, which composed almost 
the whole of the retreat, had been obliged to abandon it so in- 
stantaneously, that every article of stores and baggage was left 
behind, and in this destitute condition, without tent or blanket, 
and without any other utensils to dress their provision than what 
they procured by the way, they performed a march of about ninety 
miles, and had the address and management to prolong it to the 
space of nineteen days. 

By this unexpected or rather unthought-of turn of affairs, the 
country was in an instant surprised into confusion, and found an 
enemy within its bowels, without an army to oppose him. There 
were no succors to be had, but from the free-will offering of the 
inhabitants. All was choice, and every man reasoned for himself. 

It was in this situation of affairs, equally calculated to confound 
or to inspire, that the gentleman, the merchant, the farmer, the 
tradesman and the laborer mutually turned from all the conveni- 
ences of home, to perform the duties of private soldiers, and un- 
dergo the severit.es of a winter campaign. The delay so judi- 
ciously contrived on the retreat, afforded time for the volunteer 
reinforcements to join general Washington on the Delaware. 

The abbe is likewise wrong in saying, that the American army 
fell accidentally on Trenton. It was the very object for which 
general Washington crossed the Delaware in the dead of the 
night and in the midst of snow, storms, and ice ; and which he 
immediately re-crossed with his prisoners, as soon as he had 



LETTER TO ABBE RAYNAL. 319 

accomplished his purpose. Neither was the intended enterprise 
a secret to the enemy, information having been sent of it by letter, 
from a British officer at Princeton, to colonel Rolle, who com- 
manded the Hessians at Trenton, which letter was afterwards 
funnel by the Americans. Nevertheless the post was completely 
surprised. A small circumstance, which had the appearance of 
on the paxt of the Americans, led to a more capital and 
mistake on the part of Rolle. 
The case was this. A detachment of twenty or thirty Amen- 
n sent across the river, from a post a few mile- 
above, by iin officer unacquainted with the intended attack ; 
wt re met by a body of Hessians, on the night to which the 
in. in. .11 pointed, which was Christmas night, and repulsed. 
Nothing further appearing, and the Hessians mistaking this for 
the advanced party, supposed the enterprise disconcerted] which 

at that tune was QOt begun, and under this idea returned to their 

quarters ; so that, what might have raised an alarm, and brought 
the Americans into an ambuscade, served to take off the force of 
an information, and promote the success of the enterprise. Soon 
after daylight, general "Washington entered the town, and after a 
little opposition, made himself master of it, with upwards of nine 
hundred prisoners. 

This combination of equivocal circumstances, falling within 

what the abbe Btylea, " ike wide empire of chance^ would have 

afforded a fine field for thought] and I wish, for the sake of that 

iner of reflection he is so capable of using, that he had 

known it. 

Hut the action at Princeton w as accompanied by a still greater 
embarrassment of matters, and followed by more extraordinary 
consequences. The Americana, by a happy stroke of general- 
ship, in this instance, not only deranged and defeated all the 
plans of the British, in the intended moment of execution, but 
drew from their posts the enemy they were not able to drive, and 
obliged them to close the campaign. As the circumstance is a 
curiosity in war, and not well understood in Europe, I shall, as 
concisely as -I can, relate the principal parts ; they may serve to 
prevent future historians from error, and recover from forgetful- 
ness a scene of magnificent fortitude. 

Immediately after the surprise of the Hessians at Trenton, 
general Washington re-crossed the Delaware, which at this place 



320 LETTER TO ABBE RAYNAL. 

is about three quarters of a mile over^ and reassumed his former 
post on the Pennsylvania side. Trenton remained unoccupied, 
and the enemy were posted at Princeton, twelve miles distant, 
on the road towards New- York. The weather was now grow- 
ing very severe, and as there were very few houses near the 
shore where general Washington had taken his station, the 
greatest part of his army remained out in the woods and fields. 
These, with some other circumstances, induced the re-crossing 
the Delaware and taking possession of Trenton. It was un- 
doubtedly a bold adventure, and carried with it the appearance of 
defiance, especially when we consider the panic-struck condition 
of the enemy on the loss of the Hessian post. But in order to 
give a just idea of the affair, it is necessary that I should describe 
the place. 

Trenton is situated on a rising ground, about three quarters of 
a mile distant from the Delaware, on the eastern or Jersey side ; 
and is cut into two divisions by a small creek or rivulet, sufficient 
to turn a mill which is on it, after which it empties itself at nearly 
right angles into the Delaware. The upper division, which is 
that to the northeast, contains about seventy or eighty houses, 
and the lower about forty or fifty. The ground on each side 
this creek, and on which the houses are, is likewise rising, and 
the two divisions present an agreeable prospect to each other, 
with the creek between, on which there is a small stone bridge 
of one arch. 

Scarcely had general Washington taken post here, and before 
the several parties of militia, out on detachments, or on their 
way, could be collected, than the British, leaving behind them a 
strong garrison at Princeton, marched suddenly and entered 
Trenton at the upper or northeast quarter. A party of the 
Americans skirmished with the advanced party of the British, 
to afford time for removing the stores and baggage, and with' 
drawing over the bridge. 

In a little time the British had possession of one half of the 
town, general Washington of the ether; and the creek only 
separated the two armies. Nothing could be a more critical 
situation than this, and if ever the fate of America depended 
upon the event of a day, it was now. The Delaware was filling 
fast with large sheets of driving ice, and was impassable ; of 
course no retreat into Pennsylvania could be effected, neither is 



LETTER TO ABBE RA.YNAL. 321 

it possible, in the face of an enemy, to pass a river of such extent. 
The roads were broken and rugged with the frost, and the main 
road was occupied by the enemy. 

About four o'clock a party of the British approached the 
bridge, with a design to gain it, but were repulsed. They made 
no more attempts, though the creek itself is passable any where 
between the bridge and the Delaware. It runs in a rugged, 
natural made ditch, over which a person may pass with little diffi- 
culty, the stream being rapid and shallow. Evening was now 
comii ig i <i,and the British, believing they had all the advantages 
juld wish for, and that they could use them when thev 
pleased, discontinued all further operations, and held themselves 
prepared to make the attack next morning. 

But the next morning produced a scene as elegant as it was 
unexpected. The British were under arms and ready to march 
to action, when one of their light-horse from Princeton came fu- 
riously down the street, with an account that general Washington 
had that morning attacked and carried the British post at that 
place, and was proceeding on to seize the magazine at Bruns- 
wick ; on which the British, who were then on the point of mak- 
ing an assault on the evacuated camp of the Americans, wheeled 
about, and in a fit of consternation marched for Princeton. 

This retreat is one of those extraordinary circumstances, that 
in future ages may probably pR«« for fable. For it will with dif- 
ficulty be believed, that two armies, on which such important 
consequences depended, should be crowded into so small a space 
as Trenton ; and that the one, on the eve of an engagement, 
when every ear is supposed to be open, and every degree of 
watchfulness employed, should move completely from the ground, 
with all its stores, baggage and artillery, unknown and even un- 
suspected by the other. And so entirely were the British de- 
ceived, that when they heard the report of the cannon and small 
arms at Princeton, they supposed it to be thunder, though in the 
depth of winter. 

General Washington, the better to cover and disguise his re- 
treat from Trenton, had ordered a line of fires to be lighted up 
in front of his camp. These not only served to give an appear- 
ance of going to rest, and continuing that deception, but they ef- 
fectually concealed from the British whatever was acting behind 
them, for flame can no more be seen through than a wall, and in 

vol. i. 41 



322 LETTER TO ABBE RAYNAL, 

this situation, it may with propriety be said, they became a pillar 
of fire to one army, and a pillar of a cloud to the otner. After 
this, by a circuitous march of about eighteen miles, the Ameri- 
cans reached Princeton early in the morning. 

The number of prisoners taken were between two and three 
hundred, with which general Washington immediately set off. 
The van of the British army from Trenton enterea Princeton 
about an hour after the Americans had left it, who. continuing 
their march for the remainder of the day, arrived in me evening 
at a convenient situation, wide of the main road to Brunswick, 
and about sixteen miles distant from Princeton. But so wearied 
and exhausted were they, with the continual and unaoated service 
and fatigue of two days and a night, from action to action, with- 
out shelter, and almost without refreshment, that tne Dare and 
frozen ground, with no other covering than the sky, became to 
them a place of comfortable rest. By these two events, and with 
but a little comparative force to accomplish them, the Americans 
closed with advantage a campaign, which, but a few days before, 
threatened the country with destruction. The British army, 
apprehensive for the safety of their magazines at Brunswick, 
eighteen miles distant, marched immediately for that place, 
where they arrived late in the evening, and from which they 
made no attempts to move, for nearly five months. 

Having thus stated the principal outlines of these two most in 
teresting actions, I shall now quit them, to put tne abbe right in 
his mis-stated account of the debt and paper money of America, 
wherein, speaking of these matters, he says : 

" These ideal riches were rejected. The more the multipli- 
cation of them was urged by want, the greater did their deprecia- 
tion grow. The congress was indignant at the affront given to 
its money, and declared all those to be traitors to tneir country, 
who should not receive it as they would have received gold 
itself. 

" Did not this body know, that prepossessions are no more to 
be controlled than feelings are ? Did it not perceive that, in the 
present crisis, every rational man would be afraid of exposing his 
fortune 1 Did it not see, that at the beginning of a republic, it 
permitted to itself the exercise of such acts of despotism as are 
unknown even in the countries which are moulded to, and be- 
come familiar with, servitude and oppression ? Could it pretend 



LETTER TO ABBE RAYNAL. 323 

that it did not punish a want of confidence with the pains which 
would have been scarcely merited by revolt and treason ? Of all 
this was the congress well aware. But it had no choice of 
means. Its despised and despicable scraps of paper were actu- 
ally thirty times below their original value, when more of them 
were ordered to be made. On the 13th of September, 1779, 
there was of this paper among the public, to the amount of 
35,544,155/. The state owed moreover 8,385,356/. without 
reckoning the particular debts of single provinces.' 7 

In the above recited passages, the abbe speaks as if the United 
States had contracted a debt of upwards of forty million pounds 
sterling, besides the debts of the individual states. After which, 
speaking of foreign trade with America, he says, that " those 
countries in Europe, which or< truly commercial ones, knowing 
that North-America had !>ecn reduced to contract debts, at the 
epoch even of her o-reatest prosperity, wisely thought that, in her 
present distress, she would be able to pay but very little, for what 
might be curried to her." 

I know it must be extremely difficult to make foreigners un- 
jerstand the nature and circumstances of our paper money, be- 
cause there are natives, who do not understand it themselves. 
But with us its fate is now determined. Common consent has 
consigned it to rest with that kind of regard, which the long ser- 
vice of inanimate things insensibly obtains from mankind. Every 
stone in the bridge, that has carried us over, seems to have a 
claim upon our esteem. But this was a corner stone, and its 
usefulness cannot be forgotten. There is something in a grateful 
mind, which extends itself even to things that can neither be 
benefited by regard, nor sutler by neglect : but so it is ; and 
almost every man is sensible of the effect. 

But to return. The paper money, though issued from con- 
gress under the name of dollars, did not come from that body 
always at that value. Those which were issued the first year, 
were equal to gold and silver. The second year less, the third 
still less, and so on, for nearly the space of five years : at the 
end of which, I imagine, that the whole value, at which congress 
might pay away the several emissions, taking them together, was 
about ten or twelve million pounds sterling. 

Now as it would have taken ten or twelve millions sterling of 
taxes to carry on the war for five years, and, as while this money 



324 LETTER TO ABBE RAY5AL. 

was issuing, and likewise depreciating down to nothing, there 
were none, or few valuable taxes paid ; consequently the event 
to the public was the same, whether they sunk ten or twelve 
millions of expended money, by depreciation, or paid ten or 
twelve millions by taxation ; for as they did not do both, and 
chose to do one, the matter which, in a general view, was indif- 
ferent. And therefore, what the abbe supposes to be a debt, has 
now no existence ; it having been paid, by every body consenting 
to reduce, at his own expense, from the value of the bills contin- 
ually passing among themselves, a sum, equal, nearly, to what 
the expense of the war was for five years. 

Again. The paper money having now ceased, and the depre- 
ciation with it, and gold and silver supplied its place, the war will 
now be carried on by taxation, which will draw from the public a 
considerable less sum than what the depreciation drew ; but as 
while they pay the former, they do not suffer the latter, and as 
when they suffered the latter, they did not pay the former, the 
thing will be nearly equal, with this moral advantage, that taxa- 
tion occasions frugality and thought, and depreciation produced 
dissipation and carelessness. 

And again. If a man's portion of taxes comes to less than 
what he lost by the depreciation, it proves that the alteration is in 
his favor. If it comes to more, and he is justly assessed, it shows 
that he did not sustain his proper share of depreciation, because 
the one was as operatively his tax as the other. 

It is true, that it never was intended, neither was it foreseen, 
that the debt contained in the paper currency should sink itself 
in this manner ; but as, by the voluntary conduct of all and of 
every one, it has arrived at this fate, the debt is paid by those who 
owed it. Perhaps nothing was ever so universally the act of a 
country as this. Government had no hand in it. Every man 
depreciated his own money by his own consent, for such was the 
effect, which the raising the nominal value of goods produced. 
But as by such reduction he sustained a loss equal to what he 
must have paid to sink it by taxation, therefore the line of justice 
is to consider his loss by the depreciation as his tax for that time, 
and not to tax him when the war is over, to make that money 
good in any other person's hands, which became nothing id 
his own. 



LETTER TO ABBE RAYNAL. 325 

Again. The paper currency was issued for the express pur- 
pose of carrying on the war. It has performed that service, 
without any other material charge to the public, while it lasted. 
But to suppose, as some did, that, at the end of the war, it was 
to grow into gold or silver, or become equal thereto, was to sup- 
pose that we were to get two hundred millions of dollars by going 
to ivar, instead of paying the cost of carrying it on. 

But if any thing in the situation of America, as to her currency 
or her circumstances, yet remains not understood, then let it be 
remembered, that this war is the public's war ; the country's war. 
It is their independence that is to be supported ; their property 
that is to be secured ; their country that is to be saved. Here, 
government, the army, and the people, are mutually and recipro- 
cally one. In other wars, kings may lose their thrones, and their 
dominions ; but here, the loss must fall on the majesty of the 
multitude, and the property they are contending to save. Every 
man being sensible of this, he goes to the field, or pays his por- 
tion of the charge, as the sovereign of his own possessions ; and 
when he is conquered a monarch falls. 

The remark, which the abbe in the conclusion of the passage 
has made, respecting America's contracting debts in the time of 
her prosperity, (by which he means, before the breaking out of 
hostilities,) serves to show, though he has not made the applica- 
tion, the very great commercial difference between a dependant 
and an independent country. In a state of dependance. and with 
a fettered commerce, though with all the advantar: ' peace, 
her trade could not balance itself, and ih ai iiaily run into debt. 
But now, in a state of independence, though involved in war, sho 
requires no credit; her ston are full of merchandize, and gold 
and silver are become the tjurrency of the country. How these 
things have established themselves is difficult to account for : 
but they are tacts, and facts are more powerful than arguments. 

As it is probable this letter will undergo a re-publication in 
1 irope, the remarks here thrown together will serve to show the 
extreme folly of Britain in resting her hopes of success on the 
extinction of our paper currency. The expectation is at once so 
childish and forlorn, that it places her in the laughable condition 
of a famished lion watching for prey at a spider's web. 

From this account of the currency, the abbe proceeds to state 
-he condition of America in the winter of 1777, and the spring 



326 LETTER TO ABBE RAYNAL. 

following; and closes his observations with mentioning the 
treaty of alliance, which was signed in France, and the pro- 
positions of the British ministry, which were rejected in America. 
But in the manner in which the abbe has arranged his facts, there 
is a very material error, that not only he, but other European 
historians have fallen into ; none of them having assigned the 
true cause why the British proposals were rejected, and all of 
them have assigned a wrong one. 

In the winter of 1778, and spring following, congress were 
assembled at Yorktown, in Pennsylvania, the British were in 
possession of Philadelphia, and general Washington with the 
army were encamped in huts at the Valley-Forge, twenty-five 
miles distant therefrom. To all, who can remember, it was a 
season of hardship, but not despair ; and the abbe, speaking of 
this period and its inconveniences, says : 

" A multitude of privations, added to so many other misfor- 
tunes, might make the Americans regret their former tranquillity, 
and incline them to an accommodation with England. In vain 
had the people been bound to the new government by the sacred- 
ness of oaths and the influence of religion. In vam had endea- 
vors been used to convince them that it was impossible to treat 
safely with a country, in which one parliament might overturn, 
what should have been established by another. In vain had they 
been threatened with the eternal resentment of an exasperated 
and vindictive enemy. It was possible that these distant troubles 
might not be balanced by the weight of present evils. 

"So thought the British ministry, when they sent to the new 
world public agents, authorised to offer every thing except inde- 
pendence to these very Americans, from whom they had two 
years before exacted an unconditional submission. It is not 
improbable but, that by this plan of conciliation, a few months 
sooner, some effect might have been produced. But at the pe- 
riod, at which it was proposed by the court of London, it was 
rejected with disdain, because this measure appeared but as an 
argument of fear and weakness. The people were already re- 
assured. The congress, the generals, the troops, the bold and 
skilful men, in each colony had possessed themselves of the au 
thority ; every thing had recovered its first spirit. This was the 
effect of a treaty of friendship and commerce between the United 



LETTER TO ABBE RAYNAL. 327 

States and the court of Versailles, signed the 6th of February, 
1778." 

On this passage of the abbe's I cannot help remarking, that, 
to unite time with circumstance, is a material nicety in history ; 
the want of which frequently throws it into endless confusion and 
mistake, occasions a total separation between causes and conse- 
quences, and connects them with others they are not immedi- 
ately, and sometimes not at all, related to. 

The abbe, in saying that the offers of the British ministry 
" were rejected with disdain," is right, as to the fact, but wrong 
as to the time ; and this error in the time, has occasioned him to 
be mistaken in the cause. 

The signing the treaty of Paris the 6th of February, 1778, 
could have no effect on the mind or politics of America, until it 
was known in America : and therefore, when the abbe says, that 
the rejection of the British offers was in consequence of the alli- 
ance, he must mean, that it was in consequence of the alliance, 
being known m America ; which was not the ca.s^ : and by this 
mistake he not only takes from her the reputation, which her un- 
shaken fortitude in that trying situation deserves, but is likewise 
led very injuriously to suppose, that had she not known of the 
treaty, the offers would probably have been accepted ; whereas 
she knew nothing of the treaty at the time of the rejection, and 
consequently did not reject them on that ground. 

The propositions or offers above mentioned, were contained 
in two bills brought into the British parliament by lord North, on 
the 17th of February, 1778. Those bills were hurried through 
both houses with unusual haste, and beforo they had gone through 
all the customary forms of parliament, copies of them were sent 
over to lord Howe and general Howe, then in Philadelphia, who 
were likewise commissioners. General Howe ordered them to 
be printed in Philadelphia, and sent copies of them by a flag to 
general Washington, to be forwarded to congress at Yorktown, 
where they arrived the 21*t of April, 1778. Thus much for the 
arrival of the bills in America. 

Congress, as is their usual mode, appointed a committee from 
their own body, to examine them and report thereon. The re- 
port was brought in the next day, (the twenty-second,) was read, 
and unanimously agreed to, entered on their journals, and pub- 
Ushed for the information of the country Now this report must 



323 LETTER TO ABBE RAYNAL. 

be the rejection to which the abbe alludes, because congress gave 
no other formal opinion on those bills and propositions : and on 
a subsequent application from the British commissioners, dated 
the 27th of May, and received at Yorktown the 6th of June, 
congress immediately referred them for an answer, to their print- 
ed resolves of the 22d of April. Thus much for the rejection of 
the offers. 

On the 2d of May, that is, eleven days after the above rejec- 
tion was made, the treaty between the United States and France 
arrived at Yorktown ; and until this moment congress had not 
the least notice or idea, that such a measure was in any train of 
execution. But lest this declaration of mine should pass only 
for assertion, I shall support it by proof, for it is material to the 
character and principle of the revolution to show, that no condi- 
tion of America, since the declaration of independence, however 
trying and severe, ever operated to produce the most distant idea 
of yielding it up either by force, distress, artifice or persuasion. 
And this proof is the more necessary, because it was the system 
of the British ministry at this time, as well as before and since, to 
hold out to the European powers that America was unfixed in 
her resolutions and policy ; hoping by this artinee to lessen her 
reputation in Europe, and weaken the confidence which those 
powers or any of them mignt be inclined to place in her. 

At the time these matters were transacting, I was secretary in 
the foreign department of congress. All the political letters 
from the American commissioners rested in my hands, and all 
that were officially written went from my office ; and so far from 
congress knowing any thing of the signing the treaty, at the time 
they rejected the British offers, they had not received a line of 
information from their commissioners at Paris, on any subject 
whatever, for upwards of a, twelve-month. Probably the loss of 
the port of Philadelphia and the navigation of the Delaware, to- 
gether with the danger of the seas, covered at this time with 
British cruisers, contributed to the disappointment. 

One packet, it is true, arrived at Yorktown in January pre- 
ceding, which was about three months before the arrival of the 
treaty ; but, strange as it may appear, every letter had been taken 
out, before it was put on board the vessel which brought it from 
France, and blank white paper put in their stead. 



LETTER TO ABBE AAYNAL. 320 

Having thus stated the time when the proposals from the 
British commissioners were first received, and likewise the time 
when the treaty of alliance arrived, and shown that the rejection 
of the former was eleven days prior to the arrival of the latter, 
and without the least knowledge of such circumstance having 
taken place or being about to take place ; the rejection, there- 
fore, must, and ought to be attributed to the fixed, unvaried sen- 
timents of America respecting the enemy she is at war with, and 
her determination to support her independence to the last public 
effort, and not to any new circumstance which had taken place in 
her favor, which at that time she did not and could not know of 

Besides, there is a vigor of determination and spirit of defiance 
in the language of the rejection, (which I here subjoin,) which 
derive their greatest glory by appearing before the treaty was 
known ; for that, which is bravery in distress, becomes insult in 
prosperity : and the treaty placed America on such a strong 
foundation, that had she then known it, the answer which she 
gave, would have appeared rather as an air of triumph, than as 
the glowing serenity of fortitude. 

Upon the whole, the abbe appears to have entirely mistaken 
the matter ; for instead of attributing the rejection of the propo- 
sitions to our knowledge of the treaty of alliance ; he should have 
attributed the origin of them in the British cabinet, to their know- 
ledge of that event. And then the reason why they were hurried 
over to America in the state of bills, that is, before they were 
passed into acts, is easily accounted for, which is, that they 
might have the chance of reaching America before any know- 
ledge of the treaty should arrive, which they were lucky enough 
to do, and there met the fate they so richly merited. That these 
bills were brought into the British parliament after the treaty 
with France was signed, is proved from the dates : the treaty 
being on the 6 th, and the bills on the 17th of February. And 
that the signing the treaty was known in parliament, when the 
bills were brought in, is likewise proved by a speech of Mr. Fox, 
on the said 17th of February, who, in reply to lord North, in- 
formed the house of the treaty being signed, and challenged the 
minister's knowledge of the same fact.* 

* In congress, April 22d, 1788, 
"The committee to whom was referred the general's letter of the 18th f 
containing a certain printed paper sent from Philadelphia, purporting to la 

vol. i. 42 



330 LETTER TO ABBE RAYNAI.. 

Though I am not surprised to see the abbe mistaken in mat- 
ters of history, acted at such a distance from his sphere of imme- 
diate observation, yet I am more than surprised to find him wrong 

the draught of a bill for declaring the intentions of the parliament of Great 
Britain, as to the exercise of what they are pleased to term their right of im- 
posing taxes within these United States : and also the draught of a bill to 
enable the king of Great Britain to appoint commissioners, with powers to 
treat, consult, and agree upon the means of quieting certain disorders within 
the said states, beg leave to observe, , 

" That the said paper being industriously circulated by emissaries of the 
enemy, in a partial and secret manner, the same ought to be forthwith printed 
for the public information. 

" The committee cannot ascertain whether the contents of the said paper 
have been framed in Philadelphia, or in Great Britain, much less whether the 
same are really and truly intended to be brought into the parliament of that 
kingdom, or whether the said parliament will confer thereon the usual solem- 
nities of their laws. But are inclined to believe this will happen, for the fol- 
lowing reasons : 

" 1st, Because their general hath made divers feeble efforts to set on foot 
some kind of treaty during the last winter, though, either from a mistaken 
idea of his own dignity and importance, the want of information, or some 
other cause, he hath not made application to those who are invested with a 
proper authority. , 

" 2d, Because they suppose that the fallacious idea of a cessation of hostil- 
ities will render these states remiss in their preparations for war. 

" 3d, Because believing the Americans wearied with war, they suppose we 
will accede to their terms for the sake of peace. 

" 4th, Because they suppose our negotiations may be subject to a like cor 
rupt influence with their debates. , 

" 5th, Because they expect from this step the same effects they did from 
what one of their ministers thought proper to call his conciliatory motion, viz. 
that it will prevent foreign powers from giving aid to these states ; that it will 
lead their own subjects to continue a little longer the present war : and that 
it will detach some weak men in America, from the cause of freedom and 
virtue. 

" 6th, Because their king, from his own showing, hath reason to appre- 
hend that his fleets and armies, instead of being employed against the territo- 
ries of these states, will be necessary for the defence of his own dominions. 
And, 

" 7th, Because the impracticability of subjugating this country being every 
day more and more manifest, it is their interest to extricate themselves from 
die war upon any terms. 

"The committee beg leave further to observe, that upon a supposition the 
matters contained in the said paper will really go into the British statute 
books, they serve to show, in a clear point of view, the weakness and wicked- 
ness of the enemy. 

" Their weakness. 

"1st, Because they formerly declared, not only that they had a right to 
bind the inhabitants of these states in all cases whatsoever, but also that the 
said inhabitants should absolutely and unconditionally submit to the exercise of 
that right. And this submission they have endeavored to exact by the sword. 
Receding from this claim, therefore, under the present circumstances, shows 
their inability to enforce it. 

"2d, Because their prince hath heretofore rejected the humblest petitions 
of the representatives of America, praying to be considered as subjects, and 
protected in the enjoyment of peace, liberty and safety : and hath waged a 
most cruel war against them, and employed the savages to butcher innocent 
women and children. But now the same prince pretends to treat with those 
very representatives, and grant to the arms of America what he refused to 
her prayers. 



LETTER TO ABBE RAYNAL. 331 

(or at Teast what appears so to me) in the well enlightened field 

of phuosop'iicat reflection. Here the materials are his own ; 

-.rented by himself; and the error, therefore, is an act of the mind. 

"'y Blaise tney have uniformly labored to conquer this continent, re- 
jecting every idea of accommodation proposed to them, from a confidence in 
their own streni^ih. Wherefore it is evident, from the change in their mode 
of j»t».»-v thnt t.Vy have lost this confidence. And, 

"4th, because *Jic constant language, spoken, not only by their ministers, 
but by the meat public and authentic acts of the nation, hath been, that it is 
incompatible with their dignity to treat with the Americans while they have 
arms m tneir hands. Notwithstanding which, an offer is now about to be 
made for treaty. 

" The xoickedntst and. insincerity of the enemy appear from the following 
con&ui 5r.1t lens: 

" 1st, Either the bills now to be passed contain a direct or indirect cession 
of a part of their former claims, or they do not. If they do, then it is ac- 
knowledged tlir.t they have sacrificed many brave men in an unjust quarrel. 
If they do not, thsn they are calculated to deceive America into terms, to 
which neitner ♦argument before the war, nor force since, could procure her 
assent. 

" 2d, The first of these bills appears, from the title, to be a declaration of 
the intvnliont of the British parliament concerning the exorcise of the right of 
imposing luxes within these states. Wherefore, should these states treat 
under the said bill, they would indirectly acknowledge that right, to obtain 
which acknowledgment the present war hath been avowedly undertaken and 
prosecuted on the part of Great Britain. 

" 3d, Should such pretended right be so acquiesced in, then, of consequence 
the same might be exercised whenever the British parliament should find 
themselves in a different temper and disposition; since it must depend upon 
those, and such like contingencies, how far men will act according to their 
former intentions. 

"4th, Tne said first bill, in the body thereof, containeth no new matter, 
but \i precisely the same, with the motion before-mentioned, and liable to all 
the objections which lay against the said motion, excepting the following par- 
ticular, viz. that by the motion actual taxation was to be suspended, so long as 
America should give as much as the said parliament might think proper: 
whereas, by the proposed bill, it is to be suspended, as long as future parlia- 
ments continue of the same mind with the present. 

" 5th, From the second bill it appears, that the British king may, if he 
pleases, appoint commissioners to treat and agree with those, whom they 
please, about a variety of things therein mentioned. But such treaties and 
agreements are to be of no validity without the concurrence of the said par- 
liament, except so far as they relate to the suspension of hostilities, and of 
certain of their acts, the granting of pardons, and the appointing of governors 
to these sovereign, free and independent states. Wherefore, the said parlia- 
ment have reserved to themselves, in express words, the power of setting aside 
any such treaty, and taking the advantage of any circumstances which may 
arise to suoject this continent to their usurpations. 

" Cih, Tne said bill, by holding forth a tender of pardon, implies a crimi- 
nality in our justifiable resistance, and consequently, to treat under it would 
be an implied acknowledgment, that the inhabitants of these states were what 
Britain has declared them to be, Rebels. 

" 7th, The inhabitants of these states being claimed by them as subjects, 
they :^ay i^fer, from the nature of the negotiation now pretended to be set on 
foot, that the said inuabii.ants would of right be afterwards bound by such laws 
as tney should nn'o. Wherefore, any agreement entered into on such nego- 
tiation might at any future time be repealed. And, 

"8th, Because the said bill purports, that the commissioners therein men- 
tioned may treat with private individuals: a measure highly der oratory to 
the dignity of national character. 



332 LETTER TO ABBE RAYNAL. 

Hitherto my remarks have been confined to circumstances ; 
the order in which they arose, and the events they produced. 
In these, my information being better than the abbe's, my task 

"From all which it appears evident to your committee, that the said bills 
are intended to operate upon the hopes and fears of the good people of these 
states, so as to create divisions among them, and a defection from the common 
cause, now by the blessing of divine providence drawing near to a favorable 
issue. That they are the sequel of that insidious plan, which from the days of 
the stamp act down to the present time, hath involved this country in conten- 
tion and bloodshed. And that, as in other cases so in this, although circum- 
stances may force them at times to recede from their unjustifiable claims, 
there can be no doubt but they will as heretofore, upon the first favorable oc- 
casion, again display that lust of domination, which hath rent in twain the 
mighty empire of Britain. 

" Upon the whole matter, the committee beg leave to report it as their 
opinion, that as the Americans united in this arduous contest upon principles 
of common interest, for the defence of common rights and privileges, which 
union hath been cemented by common calamities and by mutual good offices 
and affection, so the great cause for which they contend, and in which all 
mankind are interested, must derive its success from the continuance of that 
union. Wherefore, any man, or body of men, who should presume to make 
any separate or partial convention or agreement with commissioners under the 
crown of Great Britain, or any of them, ought to be considered and treated as 
open and avowed enemies of the United States. 

" And further your committee beg leave to report it as their opinion, that 
these United States cannot with propriety, hold any conference or treaty with 
any commissioners on the part of Great Britain, unless they shall, as a pre- 
liminary thereto, either withdraw their fleets and armies, or else, in positive 
and express terms, acknowledge the independence of the said states. 

"And inasmuch as it appears to be the design of the enemies of these states 
to lull them into a fatal security — to the end that they may act with becoming 
weight and importance, it is the opinion of your committee, that the several 
states be called upon to use the most strenuous exertions to have their respec- 
tive quotas of continental troops in the field as soon as possible, and that, all 
the militia of the said states be held in readiness, to act as occasion may re 
quire." 

The following is the answer of congress to the second application of the 
commissioners : 

" York-Town, June 6, 1778. 
"Sir, 

" I have had the honor of laying your letter of the 3d instant, with the acts 
of the British parliament which came inclosed, before congress : and I am in- 
structed to acquaint you, sir, that they have already expressed their senti- 
ments upon bills, not essentially different from those acts, in a publication of 
the 22d of April last. 

" Be assured, sir, when the king of Great Britain shall be seriously disposed 
to put an end to the unprovoked and cruel war waged against these United 
States, congress will readily attend to such terms of peace, as may consist 
with the honor of independent nations, the interest of their constituents, 
and the sacred regard they mean to pay to treaties. I have the honor to be, 
sir, 

Your most obedient, and 

most humble servant, 

HENRY LAURENS, 

President of Congress." 1 
His Excellency, 
Sir Henry Clinton, K. B. Philadelphia, 



LETTER TO ABBE RAYNAL. 333 

was easy. How I may succeed in controverting matters of sen 
timent and opinion, with one whom years, experience, and long 
established reputation have placed in a superior line, I am less 
confident in ; but as they fall within the scope of my observa- 
tions it would be improper to pass them over. 

From this part of the abbe's work to the latter end, I find sev- 
eral expressions, which appear to me to start, with cynical com 
plexion, from the path of liberal thinking, or at least they are so 
involved as to lose many of the beauties which distinguish othei 
*)arts of the performance. 

The abbe having brought his work to the period when the 
treaty of alliance between France and the United States com- 
menced, proceeds to make some remarks thereon. 

" In short," says he, " philosophy, whose first sentiment is the 
desire to see all governments just and all people happy, in cast- 
ing her eyes upon this alliance of a monarchy, with a people who 
are defending their liberty, is curious to know its motive. She 
sees at once, too clearly, that the happiness of mankind has no 
part in it." 

Whatever train of thinking or of temper the abbe might be in, 
when he penned this expression, matters not. They will neither 
qualify the sentiment, nor add to its defect. If right, it needs no 
apology ; if wrong, it merits no excuse. It is sent into the world 
as an opinion of philosophy, and may be examined without regard 
to the author. 

It seems to be a defect, connected with ingenuity, that it often 
employs itself more in matters of curiosity, than usefulness. 
Man must be the privj counsellor of fate, or something is not 
right. He mu? know the springs, the whys and wherefores of 
every thing, or he sits down unsatisfied. Whether this be a 
crime, or only a caprice of humanity, I am not inquiring into. I 
shall take the passage as I find it, and place my objections 
against it. 

It is not so properly the motives which produced the alliance, 
as the consequences which are to be produced from it, that mark 
out the field of philosophical reflection. In the one we only 
penetrate into the barren cave of secrecy, where little can be 
known, and every thing may be misconceived ; in the other, the 
mind is presented with a wide extended prospect of vegetative 
good, and sees a thousand blessings budding into existence. 



334 LETTER TO ABBE RAYNAL. 

' But the expression, even within the compass of the abbe's 
meaning, sets out with an error, because it is made to declare 
that which no man has authority to declare. Who can say that 
the happiness of mankind made no part of the motives which pro- 
duced the alliance ? To be able to declare this, a man must be 
possessed of the mind of all the parties concerned, and know tnat 
their motives were something else. 

In proportion as the independence of America became con- 
templated and understood, the local advantages of it to the im- 
mediate actors, and the numerous benefits it promised mankind . 
appeared to be every day increasing ; and we saw not a temDo- 
rary good for the present race only, but a continued good to ail 
posterity ; these motives, therefore, added to those which pre- 
ceded them, became the motives on the part of America, which 
\ed her to propose and agree to the treaty of alliance, as the best 
effectual method of extending and securing happiness ; and there- 
fore, with respect to us, the abbe is wrong. 

France, on the other hand, was situated very differently. She 
was not acted upon by necessity to seek a friend, and therefore 
her motive in becoming one, has the strongest evidence of being 
good, and that which is so, must have some happiness for its od- 
ject. With regard to herself, she saw a train of conveniences 
worthy her attention. By lessening the power of an enemy, 
whom at the same time, she sought neither to destroy nor ais- 
tress, she gained an advantage without doing an evil, and created 
to herself a new friend by associating with a country in misfor- 
tune. The springs of thought that lead to actions of this kind, 
however political they may be, are nevertheless naturally benefi- 
cent ; for in all causes, good or bad, it is necessary there shouiQ 
be a fitness in the mind, to enable it to act in character witn tne 
object : therefore, as a bad cause cannot be prosecuted witn a 
gooo motive, so neither can a good cause be long supported bv a 
bad one ; and as no man acts without a motive, therefore in tne 
present instance, as they cannot be bad, they must be admittea 
to be good. But the abbe sets out upon such an extended scaie, 
that he overlooks the degrees by which it is measured, and re- 
jects the beginning of good, because the end comes not out at 
once. 

It is true that bad motives may in some degree be brought to 
support a good cause or prosecute a good object ; but it never 



LETTER TO ABBE RAYNAL. 335 

continues long, which is not the case with France ; for either 
the object will reform the mind, or the mind corrupt the object, 
or else not being able, either way, to get into unison, they will 
separate in disgust : and this natural, though unperceived pro- 
gress of association or contention between the mind and the ob- 
ject, is the secret cause of fidelity or defection. Every object a 
man pursues, is, for the time, a kind of mistress to his mind : if 
both are good or bad, the union is natural ; but if they are in re- 
verse, and neither can seduce nor yet reform the other, the oppo- 
sition grows into dislike, and a separation follows. 

When the cause of America first made its appearance on the 
stage of the universe, there were many, who, in the style of ad- 
venturers and fortune-hunters, were dangling in its train, and 
making their court to it with every profession of honor and at- 
tachment. They were loud in its praise and ostentatious in its 
service. Every place echoed with their ardor or their anger, 
and they seemed like men in love. But, alas ! they were fortune- 
hunters. Their expectations were excited, but their minds were 
unimpressed ; and finding it not to their purpose, nor themselves 
reformed by its influence, they ceased their suit, and in some in- 
stances deserted and betrayed it. 

There were others, who at first beheld America with indiffer- 
ence, and unacquainted with her character were cautious of her 
company. They treated her as one, who, under the fair name of 
liberty, might conceal the hideous figure of anarchy, or the 
gloomy monster of tyranny. They knew not what she was. If 
fair, she was fair indeed. But still she was suspected, and 
though born among us appeared to be a stranger. 

Accident with some, and curiosity with others, brought on a 
distant acquaintance. They ventured to look at her. They felt 
an inclination to speak to her. One intimacy led to another, till 
the suspicion wore away, and a change of sentiment gradually 
stole upon the mind ; and having no self interest to serve, no 
passion of dishonor to gratify, they became enamored of her in- 
nocence, and unaltered by misfortune or uninfluenced by success, 
shared with fidelity in the varieties of her fate. 

This declaration of the abbe's respecting motives, has led me, 
unintentionally, into a train of metaphysical reasoning ; but there 
was no other avenue by which it could so properly be approached. 
To place presumption against presumption, assertion against 



336 LETTER TO ABBE RAYNAL. 

assertion; is a mode of opposition that has no effect ; and there 
fore the more eligible method was to show, that the declaration 
does not correspond with the natural progress of the mind, and 
the influence it has upon our conduct. I shall now quit this part 
and proceed to what I have before stated, namely, that it is not so 
properly the motives which produced the alliance, as the conse 
quences to be produced from it, that mark out the field of philo- 
sophical reflection. 

It is an observation I have already made in some former publi- 
cations, that the circle of civilization is yet incomplete. Mutual 
wants have formed the individuals of each country into a kind of 
national society, and here the progress of civilization has stopped 
For it is easy to see, that nations with regard to each other (not- 
withstanding the ideal civil law, which every one explains as it 
suits him) are like individuals in a state of nature. They are 
regulated by no fixed principle, governed by no compulsive law, 
and each does independently what it pleases or what it can. 

Were it possible we could have known the world when in a 
state of barbarism, we might have concluded that it never could 
be brought into the order we now see it. The untamed- mind 
was then as hard, if not harder, to work upon in its individual 
state, than the national mind is in its present one. Yet we have 
seen the accomplishment of the one, why then should we doubt 
that of the other ? 

There is a greater fitness in mankind to extend and complete 
the civilization of nations with each other at this day, than there 
was to begin it with the unconnected individuals at first ; in the 
same manner that it is somewhat easier to put together the mate- 
rials of a machine after they are formed, than it was to form them 
from original matter. The present condition of the world, differ- 
ing so exceedingly from what it formerly was, has given a new 
cast to the mind of man, more than what he appears to be sen 
sible of. The wants of the individual which first produced vhe 
idea of society, are now augmented into the wants of the nation, 
and he is obliged to seek from anothei country what before he 
sought from the next person. 

Letters, the tongue of the world, have in some measure 
brought all mankind acquainted, and by an extension of their 
uses are every day promoting some new friendship. Through 
them distant nations become capable of conversation, and losing 



LETTER TO ABBE RAYNAL. 337 

by degrees the awkwardness of strangers, and the moroseness 
of suspicion, they learn to know and understand each other. 
Science, the partisan of no country, but the beneficent patroness 
of all, has liberally opened a temple where all may meet. Her 
influence on the mind, like the sun on the chilled earth, has long 
been preparing it for higher cultivation and further improvement. 
The philosopher of one country sees not an enemy in the philoso- 
pher of another : he takes his seat in the temple of science, and 
asks not who sits beside him. 

This was not the condition of the barbarian world. Then the 
wants of men were few and the objects within his reach. While 
he could acquire these, he lived in a state of individual indepen- 
dence ; the consequence of which was, there were as many na- 
tions as persons, each contending with the other, to secure some- 
thing which he had, or to obtain something which he had not. 
The world had then no business to follow, no studies to exercise 
the mind. Their time was divided between sloth and fatigue. 
Hunting and war were their chief occupations ; sleep and food 
their principal enjoyments. 

Now it is otherwise. A change in the mode of life has made 
it necessary to be busy ; and man finds a thousand things to do 
now which before he did not. Instead of placing his ideas of 
greatness in the rude achievements of the savage, he studies arts, 
sciences, agriculture and commerce, the refinements of the gen- 
tleman, the principles of society, and the knowledge of the phi- 
losopher. 

There are many things which in themselves are neither morally 
good nor bad, but they are productive of consequences, which are 
strongly marked with one or other of these characters. Thus 
commerce, though in itself a moral nullity, has had a considerable 
influence in tempering the human mind. It was the want of ob- 
jects in the ancient world, which occasioned in them such a rude 
and perpetual turn for war. Their time hung on their hands 
without the means of employment. The indolence they lived in 
afforded leisure for mischief, and being all idle at once, and equal 
in their circumstances, they were easily provoked or induced to 
action. 

But the introduction of commerce furnished the world with 
objects, which, in their extent, reach every man, and give him 
something to think about and something to do ; by these his 
vol. i. 43 



338 LETTER TO ABBE RAYNAL, 

attention is mechanically drawn from the pursuits, which a state 
of indolence and an unemployed mind occasioned, and he trades 
with the same countries, which former ages, tempted by their 
productions, and too indolent to purchase them, would have gone 
to war with. 

Thus, as I have already observed, the condition of the world 
being materially changed by the influence of science and com- 
merce, it is put into a fitness not only to admit of, but to desire, 
an extension of civilization. The principal and almost only re- 
maining enemy, it now has to encounter, is prejudice ; for it is 
evidently the interest of mankind to agree and make the best of 
life. The world has undergone its divisions of empire, the sev- 
eral boundaries of which are known and settled. The idea of 
conquering countries, like the Greeks and Romans, does not 
now exist ; and experience has exploded the notion of going to 
war for the sake of profit. In short, the objects for war are ex- 
ceedingly diminished, and there is now left scarcely any thing to 
quarrel about, but what arises from that demon of society, preju- 
dice, and the consequent sullenness and untractableness of the 
temper. 

There is something exceedingly curious in the constitution 
and operation of prejudice. It has the singular ability of ac- 
commodating itself to all the possible varieties of the human 
mind. Some passions and vices are but thinly scattered among 
mankind, and find only here and there a fitness of reception. 
But prejudice, like the spider, makes every place its home. It 
has neither taste nor choice of situation, and- all that it requires 
is room. Every where, except in fire or water, a spider will live. 
So, let the mind be as naked as the walls of an empty and for- 
saken tenement, gloomy as a dungeon, or ornamented with the 
richest abilities of thinking, let it be hot, cold, dark or light, 
lonely or inhabited, still prejudice, if undisturbed, will fill it with 
cobwebs, and live, like the spider, where there seems nothing to 
live on. If the one prepares her food by poisoning it to her 
palate and her use, the other does the same ; and as several ot 
our passions are strongly characterized by the animal world, pre- 
judice may be denominated the spider of the mind. 

Perhaps no two events ever united so intimately and forcibly 
to combat and expel prejudice, as the revolution of America and 
the alliance with France. Their effects are felt, and their influ- 



LETTER TO ABBE RAYNAL. 339 

cnce already extends as well to the old world as the new. Our 
style and manner of thinking have undergone a revolution, more 
extraordinary than the political revolution of the country. We 
see with other eyes ; we hear with other ears ; and think with 
other thoughts, than those we formerly used. We can look 
back on our own prejudices, as if they had been the prejudices 
of other people. We now see and know they were prejudices 
and nothing else ; and, relieved from their shackles, enjoy a 
freedom of mind, we felt not before. It was not all the argu- 
ment, however powerful, nor all the reasoning, however eloquent, 
that could have produced this change, so necessary to the exten- 
sion of the mind, and the cordiality of the world, without the two 
circumstances of the revolution and the alliance. 

Had America dropped quietly from Britain, no material change 
in sentiment had taken place. The same notions, prejudices, 
and conceits would have governed in both countries, as governed 
them before, and, still the slaves of error and education, they 
would have travelled on in the beaten track of vulgar and habitual 
thinking. But brought about by the means it has been, both 
with regard to ourselves, to France and England, every corner of 
the mind is swept of its cobwebs, poison and dust, and made fit 
for the reception of generous happiness. 

Perhaps there never was an alliance on a broader basis, than 
that between America and France, and the progress of it is 
worth attending to. The countries had been enemies, not pro- 
perly of themselves, but through the medium of England. They 
originally had no quarrel with each other, nor any cause for one, 
but what arose from the interest of England, and her arming 
America against France. At the same time, the Americans at a 
distance from, and unacquainted with, the world, and tutored in 
all the prejudices which governed those who governed them, 
conceived it their duty to act as they were taught. In doing 
this, they expended their substance, to make conquests, not for 
themselves but for their masters, who in return treated them as 
slaves. 

A long succession of insolent severity, and the separation 
finally occasioned by the commencement of hostilities at Lex- 
ington, on the 19th of April, 1775, naturally produced a new 
disposition of thinking. As the mind closed itself towards Eng- 
land, it opened itself towards the world, and our prejudices like 



340 LETTER TO ABBE RAYNAL. 

our oppressions, underwent, though less observed, a mental ex- 
amination ; until we found the former as inconsistent with reason 
and benevolence, as the latter were repugnant to our civil and 
political rights. 

' While we were thus advancing by degrees into the wide field 
of extended humanity, the alliance with France was concluded. 
An alliance not formed for the mere purpose of a day, but on just 
and generous grounds, and with equal and mutual advantages ; 
and the easy, affectionate manner in which the parties have since 
communicated, has made it an alliance not of courts only but of 
countries. There is now an union of mind as well as of inte- 
rest ; and our hearts as well as our prosperity call on us to sup- 
port it. 

The people of England not having experienced this change, 
had likewise no idea of it. They were hugging to their bosoms 
the same prejudices we were trampling beneath our feet ; and 
they expected to keep a hold upon America, by that narrowness 
of thinking which America disdained. What they were proud of, 
we despised ; and this is a principal cause why all their negotia- 
tions, constructed on this ground, have failed. We are now 
really another people, and cannot again go back to ignorance 
and prejudice. The mind once enlightened cannot again be- 
come dark. There is no possibility, neither is there any term to 
express the supposition by, of the mind unknowing any thing it 
already knows ; and therefore all attempts on the part of Eng- 
land, fitted to the former habit of America, and on the expecta- 
tion of their applying now, will be like persuading a seeing man 
to become blind, and a sensible one to turn an ideot. The first 
of which is unnatural and the other impossible. 

As to the remark which the abbe makes on the one country 
being a monarchy and the other a republic, it can have no essen- 
tial meaning. Forms of government have nothing to do with 
treaties. The former are the internal police of the countries 
severally ; the latter their external police jointly : and so long 
as each performs its part, we have no more right or business to 
know how the one or the other conducts its domestic affairs, than 
we have to inquire into the private concerns of a family. 

But had the abbe reflected for a moment, he would have seen, 

\that courts, or the governing powers of all countries, be their 

^brms what they may, are relatively republics with each other. 



LETTER TO ABBE RAYNAL. 341 

It is the first and true principle of alliance. Antiquity may have 
given precedence, and power will naturally create importance, 
but their equal right is never disputed. It may likewise be 
worthy of remarking, that a monarchical country can suffer 
nothing in its popular happiness by an alliance with a republican 
one ; and republican governments have never been destroyed by 
their external connexions, but by some internal convulsion or 
contrivance. France has been in alliance with the republic of 
Switzerland for more than two hundred years, and still Switzer- 
land retains her original form of government as entire as if she 
had been allied with a republic like herself; therefore this re- 
mark of the abbe should go for nothing. Besides it is best man- 
kind should mix. There is ever something to learn, either of 
manners or principle ; and it is by a free communication, without 
regard to domestic matters, that friendship is to be extended, and 
prejudice destroyed all over the world. 

But notwithstanding the abbe's high professions in favor of 
liberty, he appears sometimes to forget himself, or that his theory 
is rather the child of his fancy than of his judgment : for in almost 
the same instant that he censures the alliance, as not originally 
or sufficiently calculated for the happiness of mankind, he, by a 
figure of implication, accuses France for having acted so gen- 
erously and unreservedly in concluding it. " Why did they 
(says he, meaning the court of France) tie themselves down by 
an inconsiderate treaty to conditions with the congress, which 
they might themselves have held in dependance by ample and 
regular supplies." 

When an author undertakes to treat of public happiness he 
ought to be certain that he does not mistake passion for right, 
nor imagination for principle. Principle, like truth, needs no 
contrivance. It will ever tell its own tale, and tell it the same 
way. But where this is not the case, every page must be 
watched, recollected, and compared like an invented story. 

I am surprised at this passage of the abbe's. It means nothing 
or it means ill ; and in any case it shows the great difference 
between speculative and practical knowledge. A treaty accord- 
ing to the abbe's language would have neither duration nor affec- 
tion : it might have lasted to the end of the war, and then expired 
with it. But France, by acting in a style superior to the little 
politics of narrow thinking, has established a generous fame and 



343 LETTER TO ABBE RAYNAL. 

won the love of a country she was before a stranger to. She 
had to treat with a people who thought as nature taught them ; 
andV on her own part, she wisely saw, there was no present ad- 
vantage to be obtained by unequal terms, which could balance 
the more lasting ones that might flow from a kind and generous 
beginning. 

From this part the abbe advances into the secret transactions 
of the two cabinets of Versailles and Madrid respecting the in- 
dependence of America ; through which I mean not to follow 
him. It is a circumstance sufficiently striking without being 
commented on, that the former union of America with Britain 
produced a power, which in her hands, was becoming dangerous 
to the world : and there is no improbability in supposing, that 
had the latter known as much of the strength of the former, be- 
fore she began the quarrel as she has known since, that instead 
of attempting to reduce her to unconditional submission, she 
would have proposed to her the conquest of Mexico. But from 
the countries separately, Spain has nothing to apprehend, though 
from their union she had more to fear than any other power in 
Europe. 

The part which I shall more particularly confine myself to, is 
that wherein the abbe takes an opportunity of complimenting the 
British ministry with high encomiums of admiration, on their re- 
jecting the offered mediation of the court of Madrid, in 1779. 

It must be remembered that before Spain joined France in the 
war, she undertook the office of a mediator, and made proposals 
to the British king and ministry so exceedingly favorable to their 
interest, that had they been accepted, would have become incon- 
venient, if not inadmissible, to America. These proposals were 
nevertheless rejected by the British cabinet ; on which the abbe 
says, — 

" It is in such a circumstance as this ; it is in the time when 
noble pride elevates the soul superior to all terror ; when nothing 
is seen more dreadful than the shame of receiving the law, and 
when there is no doubt or hesitation which to choose, between 
ruin and dishonor : it is then, that the greatness of a nation is 
displayed. I acknowledge, however, that men, accustomed to 
judge of things by the event, call great and perilous resolutions, 
heroism or madness, according to the good or bad success with 
which they have been attended. If then, I should be asked, 



LETTER TO ABBE RAYNAL. 343 

what is the name which shall in years to come be given to the 
firmness, which was in this moment exhibited by the English, I 
shall answer that I do not know. But that which it deserves I 
know. I know that the annals of the world hold out to us but 
rarely, the august and majestic spectacle of a nation, which 
chooses rather to renounce its duration than its glot^." 

In this paragraph the conception is lofty and the expression 
elegant, but the coloring is too high for the original, and the like- 
ness fails through an excess of graces. To fit the powers of 
thinking and the turn of language to the subject, so as to bring 
out a clear conclusion that shall hit the point in question and 
nothing else, is the true criterion of writing. But the greater 
part of the abbe's writings (if he will pardon me the remark) 
appear to me uncentral and burdened with variety. They repre- 
sent a beautiful wilderness without paths ; in which the eye is 
diverted by every thing without being particularly directed to any 
thing ; and in which it is agreeable to be lost, and difficult to find 
the way out. 

Before I offer any other remark on the spirit and composition 
of the above passage, I shall compare it with the circumstance it 
alludes to. 

The circumstance then does not deserve the encomium. The 
rejection was not prompted by her fortitude but her vanity. She 
did not view it as a case of despair or even of extreme danger, 
and consequently the determination to renounce her duration 
rather than her glory, cannot apply to the condition of her mind. 
She had then high expectations of subjugating America, and had 
no other naval force against her than France ; neither was she 
certain that rejecting the mediation of Spain would combine that 
power with France. New mediations might arise more favorable 
than those she had refused. But if they should not, and Spain 
should join, she still saw that it would only bring out her naval 
force against France and Spain, which was not wanted and could 
not be employed against America, and habits of thinking had 
taught her to believe herself superior to both. 

But in any case to which the consequence might point, there 
was nothing to impress her with the idea of renouncing her dura- 
tion. It is not the policy of Europe to suffer the extinction of 
any power, but only to lop off or prevent its dangerous increase. 
jShe was likewise freed by situation from the internal and imme- 



344 LETTER TO ABBE RAYNAL. 

diate horrors of invasion ; was rolling in dissipation and looking 
for conquests ; and though she suffered nothing but the expense 
of war, she still had a greedy eye to magnificent reimbursement. 

But if the abbe is delighted with high and striking singularities 
of character, he might, in America, have found ample field for 
encomium. Here was a people, who could not know what part 
the world would take for, or against them ; and who were ventur- 
ing on an untried scheme, in opposition to a power, against which 
more formidable nations had failed. They had every thing to 
learn but the principles which supported them, and every thing to 
procure that was necessary for their defence. They have at 
times seen themselves as low as distress could make them, with- 
out showing the least decrease of fortitude ; and been raised 
again by the most unexpected events, without discovering an un- 
manly discomposure of joy. To hesitate or to despair are con- 
ditions equally unknown in America. Her mind was prepared 
for every thing ; because her original and final resolution of suc- 
ceeding or perishing included all possible circumstances. 

The rejection of the British propositions in the year 1778, 
circumstanced as America was at that time, is a far greater 
instance of unshaken fortitude than the refusal of the Spanish 
mediation by the court of London : and other historians, besides 
the abbe, struck with the vastness of her conduct therein, have, 
like himself, attributed it to a circumstance, which was then un- 
known, the alliance with France. Their error shows their idea 
of its greatness ; because in order to account for it, they have 
sought a cause suited to its magnitude, without knowing that the 
cause existed in the principles of the country.* 

But this passionate encomium of the abbe is deservedly sub- 
ject to moral and philosophical objections. It is the effusion of 
wild thinking, and has a tendency to prevent that humanity of re- 
flection which the criminal conduct of Britain enjoins on her as a 

* Extract from " A short Review of the present Reign," in England, p. 45, 
in the new Annual Register, for the year 1780. 

" The commissioners, who, in consequence of lord North's conciliatory 
bills, went over to America, to propose terms of peace to the colonies, were 
wholly unsuccessful. The concessions which formerly would have been re- 
ceived with the utmost gratitude, were rejected with disdain. Now was the 
time of American pride and haughtiness. It is probable, however, that it was 
not pride and haughtiness alone that dictated the resolutions of congress, but 
a distrust of the sincerity of the offers of Britain, a determination not to give 
up their independence, and, above all, the engagements into which they had m 
tered by their late treaty with France." 



LETTER TO ABBE RAYNAL. 345 

duty. — It is a laudanum to courtly iniquity. — It keeps in intoxi- 
cated sleep the conscience of a nation ; and more mischief is 
effected by wrapping up guilt in splendid excuse, than by directly 
patronizing it. 

Britain is now the only country which holds the world in dis- 
turbance and war ; and instead of paying compliments to the 
excess of her crimes, the abbe would have appeared much more 
in character, had he put to her, or to her monarch, this serious 
question — 

Are there not miseries enough in the world, too difficult to bo 
encountered and too pointed to be borne, without studying to 
enlarge the list and arming it with new destruction ? Is life so 
very long that it is necessary, nay even a duty, to shake the sand 
and hasten out the period of duration ? Is the path so elegantly 
smooth, so decked on every side and carpeted with joys, that 
wretchedness is wanted to enrich it as a soil ? Go ask thine 
aching heart, when sorrow from a thousand causes wounds it, go 
ask thy sickened self, when every medicine fails, whether this be 
the case or not 1 

Quitting my remarks on this head, I proceed to another, in 
which the abbe has let loose a vein of ill nature, and, what is 
still worse, of injustice. 

After cavilling at the treaty, he goes on to characterize the 
several parties combined in the war. " Is it possible," says the 
abbe, " that a strict union should long subsist amongst confede- 
rates, of characters so opposite as the hasty, light, disdainful 
Frenchman, the jealous, haughty, sly, slow, circumspect Span- 
iard, and the American, who is secretly snatching a look at the 
mother country, and Mould rejoice, were they compatible with 
his independence, at the disasters of his allies ?" 

To draw foolish portraits of each other, is a mode of attack 
and reprisal, which the greater part of mankind are fond of in- 
dulging. The serious philosopher should be above it, more 
especially in cases from which no good can arise, and mischief 
may, and where no received provocation can palliate the offence. 
The abbe might have invented a difference of character for every 
country in the world, and they in return might find others for 
him, till in the war of wit all real character is lost. The plea- 
santry of one nation or the gravity of another may, by a little 

vol. i. « 44 



846 LETTER TO ABBE RAYNAL. 

pencilling, be distorted into whimsical features, and the painter 
become as much laughed at as the painting. 

But why did not the abbe look a little deeper, and bring forth 
the excellencies of the several parties 1 — Why did he not dwell 
with pleasure on that greatness of character, that superiority of 
heart, which has marked the conduct of France in her con- 
quests, and which has forced an acknowledgment even from 
Britain 1 

There is one line, at least, (and many others might be dis- 
covered,) in which the confederates unite ; which is, that of a 
rival eminence in their treatment of their enemies. Spain in 
her conquest of Minorca and the Bahama islands, confirms this 
remark. America has been invariable in her lenity from the 
beginning of the war, notwithstanding the high provocations she 
has experienced. It is England only who has been insolent and 
cruel. 

But why must America be charged with a crime undeserved 
by her conduct, more so by her principles, and which, if a fact, 
would be fatal to her honor. I mean the want of attachment to 
her allies, or rejoicing in their disasters. She, it is true, has 
been assiduous in showing to the world that she was not the 
aggressor towards England, and that the quarrel was riot of her 
seeking, or, at that time, even of her wishing. But to draw infer- 
ences from her candor, and even from her justification, to stab 
her character by, (and I see nothing else from which they can be 
supposed to be drawn,) is unkind and unjust. 

Does her rejection of the British propositions in 1778, before 
she knew of any alliance with France, correspond with the 
abbe's description of her mind ? Does a single instance of 
her conduct since that time justify it ? — But there is a still 
better evidence to apply to, which is, that of all the mails 
which, at different times, have been waylaid on the road, in 
divers parts of America, and taken and earned into New-York, 
and from which the most secret and confidential private letters, 
as well as those from authority, have been published, not one of 
them, I repeat it, not a single one of them, gave countenance to 
such a charge. 

This is not a country where men are under government re- 
straint in speaking ; and if there is any kind of restraint, it arises 
from a fear of popular resentment. Now if nothing in her private 



LETTER TO ABBE RAYNAL. 347 

or public correspondence favors such a suggestion, and if the 
general disposition of the country is such as to make it unsafe 
for a man to show an appearance of joy at any disaster to her 
ally, on what grounds, I ask, can the accusation stand 1 What 
company the abbe may have kept in France, we cannot know , 
but this we know, that the account he gives does not apply to 
America. 

Had the abbe been in America at the time the news arrived of 
the disaster of the fleet under count de Grasse, in the West 
indies, he would have seen his vast mistake. Neither do I re- 
member any instance, except the loss of Charleston, in which the 
public mind suffered more severe and pungent concern, or un- 
derwent more agitations of hope and apprehension as to the truth 
or falsehood of the report. Had the loss been all our own, it 
could not have had a deeper effect, yet it was not one of these 
cases which reached to the independence of America. 

In the geographical account which the abbe gives of the thir- 
teen states, he is so exceedingly erroneous, that to attempt a 
particular refutation, would exceed the limits I have prescribed to 
myself. And as it is a matter neither political, historical, or sen- 
timental, and which can always be contradicted by the extent and 
natural circumstances of the country, I shall pass it over ; with 
this additional remark, that I never yet saw an European descrip- 
tion of America that was true, neither can any person gain a just 
idea of it, but by coming to it. 

Though I have already extended this letter beyond what I at 
first proposed, I am, nevertheless, obliged to omit many observa- 
tions, I originally designed to have made. I wish there had been 
no occasion for making any. But the wrong ideas which the 
abbe's work had a tendency to excite, and the prejudicial impres- 
sions they might make, must be an apology for my remarks, and 
the freedom with which they are made. 

I observe the abbe has made a sort of epitome of a consider- 
able part of the pamphlet Common Sense, and introduced it in 
aat form into his publication. But there are other places where 
the abbe has borrDwed freely from the said pamphlet without ac- 
knowledging it. The difference between society and govern- 
ment, with which the pamphlet opens, is taken from it, and in 
some expressions almost literally, into the abbe's work, as if 
originally his own ; and through the whole of the abbe's remarks 



348 



LETTER TO ABBE RAYNAL. 



on this head, the idea in Common Sense is so closely copied and 
pursued, that the difference is only in words, and in the arrange- 
ment of the thoughts, and not in the thoughts themselves.* 



* Common Sense. 

" Some writers have so confounded 
society with government, as to leave 
little or no distinction between them ; 
whereas they are not only different, 
but have different origins." 

" Society is produced by our wants 
and governments by our wickedness ; 
the former promotes our happiness 
•positively, by uniting our affections — 
the latter negatively, by restraining 
our vices." 



Abbe Ratnal. 

" Care must be taken not to con- 
found together society with govern- 
ment. That they may be known dis- 
tinctly, their origin should be consid- 
ered." 

"Society originates in the wants of 
men, government in their vices. So- 
ciety tends always to good — govern- 
ment ought always to tend to the re- 
pressing of evil." 



In the following paragraphs there is less likeness in the language, but the 
ideas in the one are evidently copied from the other. 



" In "order to gain a clear and just 
idea of the design and end of govern- 
ment, let us suppose a small number 
of persons, meeting in some seques- 
tered part of the earth, unconnected 
with the rest ; they will then repre- 
sent the peopling of any country or 
of the world. In this state of natural 
liberty, society will be their first 
thought. A thousand motives will 
excite them thereto. The strength 
of one man is so unequal to his wants, 
and his mind so unfitted for perpet- 
ual solitude, that he is soon obliged 
to seek assistance of another, who, in 
his turn, requires the same. Four or 
five united would be able to raise a 
tolerable dwelling in the midst of a 
wilderness; but one man might la- 
bor out the common period of life, 
without accomplishing any thing ; af- 
ter he had felled his timber, he could 
not remove it, nor erect it after it 
was removed — hunger, in the mean 
time would urge him from his work, 
and every different want call him a 
different way. Disease, nay, even 
misfortune, would be death — for al- 
though neither might be immediate- 
ly mortal, yet either of them would 
disable him from living, and reduce 
him to a state in which he might 
rather be said to perish than to die. 
Thus necessity, like a gravitating 
power, would form our newly arriv- 
ed emigrants into society, the recip- 
rocal benefits of which would super- 
sede and render the obligations of 
law and government unnecessary, 
while they remained perfectly just 
to each other. But as nothing but 
heaven is impregnable to vice, it un- 
avoidably happens, that in proportion 



" Man, thrown, as it were, by 
chance upon the globe, surrounded 
by all the evils of nature, obliged con- 
tinually to defend and protect his life 
against the storms and tempests of 
the air, against the inundations of 
water, against the fire of volcanoes, 
against the intemperance of frigid 
and torrid zones, against the sterility 
of the earth which refuses him ali- 
ment, or its baneful fecundity, which 
makes poison spring up beneath his 
feet — in short against the teeth and 
claws of savage beasts, who dispute 
with him his habitation and his prey, 
and, attacking his person, seem re- 
solved to render themselves rulers of 
this globe, of which he thinks him- 
self to be the master : man, in this 
state, alone and abandoned to him- 
self, could do nothing for his preser- 
vation. It was necessary, therefore, 
that he should unite himself, and as- 
sociate with his like, in order to 
bring together their strength and in- 
telligence in common stock. It is by 
this union that he has triumphed over 
so many evils, that he has fashioned 
this globe to his use, restrained the 
rivers, subjugated the seas, insured 
his subsistence, conquered a part of 
the animals in obliging them to serve 
him, and driven others far from his 
empire, to the depths of deserts or of 
woods, where their number dimin- 
ishes from age to age. — What a man 
alone would not have been able to ef- 
fect, men have executed in concert : 
and altogether they preserve their 
work. Such is the origin, such the 
advantages, and the end of society. — 
Government owes its birth to the ne» 
cessity of preventing and repressing 



LETTER TO AfiBE RAYNAL. 349 

But as it is time that I should come to the end of my letter, I 
shall forbear all future observations on the abbe's work, and take 
a concise view of the state of public affairs, since the time in 
which that performance was published. 

A mind habituated to actions of meanness and injustice, commits 
them without reflection, or with a very partial one ; for on what 
other ground than this, can we account for the declaration of war 
against the Dutch ? To gain an idea of the politics which actu- 
ated the British ministry to this measure, we must enter into the 
opinion which they, and the English in general, had formed of 
the temper of the Dutch nation ; and from thence infer what 
their expectation of the consequences would be. 

Could they have imagined that Holland would have seriously 
made a common cause with France, Spain and America, the 
British ministry would never have dared to provoke them. It 
would have been a madness in politics to have done so, unless 
their views were to hasten on a period of such emphatic distress, 
as should justify the concessions which they saw they must one 
day or other make to the world, and for which they wanted an 
apology to themselves. — There is a temper in some men which 
seeks a pretence for submission. Like a ship disabled in action, 
and unfitted to continue it, it waits the approach of a still larger 
one to strike to, and feels relief at the opportunity. Whether 
this is greatness or littleness of mind, I am not inquiring into. I 
should suppose it to be the latter, because it proceeds from the 
want of knowing how to bear misfortune in its original state. 

But the subsequent conduct of the British cabinet has shown 
that this was not their plan of politics, and consequently their 
motives must be sought for in another line. 

The truth is, that the British had formed a very humble opinion 

of the Dutch nation. They looked on them as a people who 

would submit to any thing ; that they might insult them as they 

liked, plunder them as they pleased, and still the Dutch dared not 

to be provoked. 

as they surmount the first difficulties the injuries which the associated in- 
of emigration, which bound them to- dividuals had to fear from one anoth- 
gether in a common cause, they will er. It is the sentinel who watches, 
begin to relax in their duty and at- in order that the common laborers be 
tachment to each other, and this re- not disturbed." 
missness will point out the necessity 
of establishing some form of govern- 
ment to supply the defect of moral 
virtue." 



350 LETTER TO ABBE RAYNAL. 

If this be taken as the opinion of the British cabinet, the 
measure is easily accounted for ; because it goes on the suppo- 
sition, that when, by a declaration of hostilities, they had robbed 
the Dutch of some millions sterling, (and to rob them was popu- 
lar,) they could make peace with them again whenever they 
pleased, and on almost any terms the British ministry should 
propose. And no sooner was the plundering committed, than 
the accommodation was set on foot and failed. 

When once the mind loses the sense of its own dignity, it 
loses, likewise, the ability of judging of it in another. And the 
American war has thrown Britain into such a variety of absurd 
situations, that, arguing from herself, she sees not in what con- 
duct national dignity consists in other countries. From Holland 
she expected duplicity and submission, and this mistake arose 
from her having acted, in a number of instances during the 
present war, the same character herself. 

To be allied to, or connected with, Britain, seems to be an 
unsafe and impolitic situation. Holland and America are in- 
stances of the reality of this remark. Make those countries the 
allies of France or Spain, and Britain will court them with civil- 
ity, and treat them with respect ; make them her own allies, and 
she will insult and plunder them. In the first case, she feels 
some apprehensions at offending them, because they have support 
at hand ; in the latter, those apprehensions do not exist. Such, 
however, has hitherto been her conduct. 

Another measure which has taken place since the publication 
of the abbe's work, and likewise since the time of my beginning 
this letter, is the change in the British ministry. What line the 
new cabinet will pursue respecting America, is, at this time, un- 
known ; neither is it very material, unless they are seriously 
disposed to a general and honorable peace. 

Repeated experience has shown, not only the impracticability 
of conquering America, but the still higher impossibility of con- 
quering her mind, or recalling her back to her former condition 
of thinking. Since the commencement of the war, which is now 
approaching to eight years, thousands and tens of thousands have 
advanced, and are daily advancing into the first state of manhood, 
who know nothing of Britain but as a barbarous enemy, and to 
whom the independence of America appears as much the natural 
and established government of the country, as that of England 



LETTER TO ABBE RAYNAL. 351 

does to an Englishman. And, on the other hand, thousands of 
the aged, who had British ideas, have dropped, and are dailv 
dropping, from the stage of business and life. The natural pro- 
gress of generation and decay operates every hour to the disad- 
vantage of Britain. Time and death, hard enemies to contend 
with, fight constantly against her interest ; and the bills of mor* 
tality, in every part of America, are the thermometers of her de- 
cline. The children in the streets are from their cradle bred to 
consider her as their only foe. They hear of her cruelties ; of 
their fathers, uncles, and kindred killed ; they see the remains of 
burnt and destroyed houses, and the common tradition of the 
school they go to, tells thein, those things were done by the 
British. 

These are circumstances which the mere English state politi- 
cian, who considers man only in a state of manhood, does not 
attend to. He gets entangled with parties coeval or equal with 
himself at home, arid thinks not how fust the rising generation in 
America is growing beyond knowledge of them, or they of him. 
In a few years all personal remembrance will be lost, and who is 
king or minister in England, will be little known and scarcely in- 
quired after. 

The new British administration is composed of persons who 
have ever been against the war, and who have constantly repro- 
bated all the violent measures of the former one. They consid- 
ered the American war as destructive to themselves, and opposed 
it on that ground. But what are these things to America 1 She 
has nothing to do with English parties. The ins and the outs are 
nothing to her. It is the whole country she is at war with, or 
must be at peace with. 

Were every minister in England a Chatham, it would now 
weigh little or nothing in the scale of American politics. Death 
has preserved to the memory of this statesman, that fame, which 
he, by living, would have lost. His plans and opinions, towards 
the latter part of his life, would have been attended with as many 
evil consequences, and as much reprobated here, as those of lord 
North ; and considering him a wise man, they abound with in- 
consistencies amounting to absurdities. 

It has apparently been the fault of many in the late minority, 
to suppose, that America would agree to certain terms with them, 
were they in place, which she would not even listen to, from the 



352 LETTER TO ABBE RAYNAL. 

then administration. This idea can answer no other purpose 
than to prolong the war ; and Britain may, at the expense of 
many more millions, learn the fatality of such mistakes. If the 
new ministry wisely avoid this hopeless policy, they will prove 
themselves better pilots, and wiser men than they are conceived 
to be ; for it is every day expected to see their bark strike upon 
some hidden rock and go to pieces. 

But there is a line in which they may be great. A more bril- 
liant opening, needs not to present itself; and it is such an one, 
as true magnanimity would improve, and humanity rejoice in. 

A total reformation is wanted in England. She wants an ex- 
panded mind, — a heart which embraces the universe. Instead 
of shutting herself up in an island, and quarrelling with the world, 
she would derive more lasting happiness, and acquire more real 
riches, by generously mixing with it, and bravely saying, I am 
the enemy of none. It is not now a time for little contrivances 
or artful politics. The European world is too experienced to be 
imposed upon, and America too wise to be duped. It must be 
something new and masterly that can succeed. The idea of 
seducing America from her independence, or corrupting her from 
her alliance, is a thought too little for a great mind, and impos- 
sible for any honest one, to attempt. Whenever politics are 
applied to debauch mankind from their integrity, and dissolve the 
virtue of human nature, they become detestable ; and to be a 
statesman on this plan, is to be a commissioned villain. He who 
aims at it, leaves a vacancy in his character, which may be filled 
up with the worst of epithets. 

If the disposition of England should be such, as not to agree 
to a general and honorable peace, and the war must, at all events, 
continue longer, I cannot help wishing, that the alliances whicn 
America has or may enter into, may become the only objects of 
the war. She wants an opportunity of showing to the world, 
that she holds her honor as dear and sacred as her independence, 
and that she will in no situation forsake those, whom no negotia- 
tions could induce to forsake her. Peace to every reflecting 
mind, is a desirable object ; but that peace which is accompanied 
with a ruined character, becomes a crime to the seducer, and a 
curse upon the seduced. 

But where is the impossibility or even the great difficulty of 
England's forming a friendship with France and Spain, and 



LETTER TO ABBE RAYNAL. 353 

making it a national virtue to renounce for ever those prejudiced 
inveteracies it has been her custom to cherish ; and which, while 
they serve to sink her with an increasing enormity of debt, by 
involving her in fruitless wars, become likewise the bane of her 
repose, and the destruction of her manners. We had once the 
fetters that she has now, but experience has shown us the mis- 
take, and thinking justly has set us right. 

The true idea of a great nation, is that which extends and pro- 
motes the principles of universal society ; whose mind rises above 
the atmospheres of local thoughts, and considers mankind, of 
whatever nation or profession they may be, as the work of one 
Creator. The rage for conquest has had its fashion, and its day. 
"Why may not the amiable virtues have the same ? The Alexan- 
ders and Caesars of antiquity have left behind them their monu- 
ments of destruction, and are remembered with hatred ; whilst 
those more exalted characters, who first taught society and sci- 
ence, are blest with the gratitude of every age and country. Of 
more use was one philosopher, though a heathen to the world, 
than all the heathen conquerors that ever existed. 

Should the present revolution be distinguished by opening a 
new system of extended civilization, it will receive from heaven 
the highest evidence of approbation ; and as this is a subject to 
which the abbe's powers are so eminently suited, I recommend it 
to his attention, with the affection of a friend, and the ardor of a 
universal citizen. 



POSTSCRIPT. 

Since closing the foregoing letter, some intimations respecting 
a general peace have made their way to America. On what au- 
thority or foundation they stand, or how near or remote such an 
event may be, are circumstances I am not inquiring into. But 
as the subject must sooner or later become a matter of serious 
attention, it may not be improper, even at this early period, can- 
'didly to investigate some points that are connected with it, or leaa 
towards it. 

vol. I. 45 



354 LETTER TO ABLE RAYNAL. 

The independence of America is at this moment as firmly es 
tablished as that of any other country in a state of war. It is not 
length of time, but power that gives stability. Nations at war, 
know nothing of each other on the score of antiquity. It is their 
present and immediate strength, together with their connexions, 
that must support them. To which we may add, that a right 
which originated to-day, is as much a right, as if it had the sanc- 
tion of a thousand years ; and therefore the independence and 
present governments of America are in no more danger of being 
subverted, because they are modern, than that of England is 
secure, because it is ancient. 

The politics of Britain, so far as respects America, were origi- 
nally conceived in idiotism, and acted in madness. There is not 
a step which bears the smallest trace of rationality. In her 
management of the war, she has labored to be wretched, and 
studied to be hated ; and in all her former propositions for ac- 
commodation, she has discovered a total ignorance of mankind, 
and of those natural and unalterable sensations, by which they are 
so generally governed. How she may conduct herself in the 
present or future business of negotiating a peace, is yet to be 
proved. 

He is a weak politician who does not understand human nature, 
and penetrate into the effect which measures of government will 
have upon the mind. All the miscarriages of Britain have arisen 
from this defect. The former ministry acted as if they supposed 
mankind to be without a mind ; and the present ministry, as if 
America was without a memory. The one must have supposed 
we were incapable of feeling ; and the other, that we could not 
remember injuries. 

There is likewise another line in which politicians mistake, 
which is, that of not rightly calculating, or rather of misjudging, 
the consequences which any given circumstance will produce. 
Nothing is more frequent, as well in common as in political life, 
than to hear people complain, that such or such means produced 
an event directly contrary to their intentions. But the fault lies 
in their not judging rightly what the event would be ; for the 
means produced only its proper and natural consequences. 

It is very probable that in a treaty of peace, Britain will contend 
for some post or other in North-America, perhaps Canada or 
Halifax, or both : and I infer this from the known deficiency of 



LETTER TO ABBE RAYNAL. 355 

her politics, which have ever yet made use of means, whose 
natural event was against both her interest and her expectation. 
But the question with her ought to be, whether it is worth her 
while to hold them, and what will be the consequences. 

Respecting Canada, one or other of the two following will 
take place, viz. if Canada should become populous, it will revolt ; 
and if it does not become so, it will not be worth the expense of 
holding. And the same may be said of Halifax, and the country 
round it. But Canada never will be populous ; neither is there 
any occasion for contrivances on one side or the other, for nature 
alone will do the whole. 

Britain may put herself to great expenses in sending settlers to 
Canada : but the descendants of those settlers will be Americans, 
as other descendants have been before them. They will look 
round and see the neighboring states sovereign and free, respect- 
ed abroad and trading at large with the world ; and the natural 
love of liberty, the advantages of commerce, the blessings of in- 
dependence, and of a happier climate, and a richer soil, will draw 
them southward ; and the effect will be, that Britain will sustain 
the expense, and America reap the advantage. 

One would think that the experience which Britain has had of 
America, would entirely sicken her of all thoughts of continental 
colonization, and any part she might retain, will only become to 
her a field of jealousy and thorns, of debate and contention, for 
ever struggling for privileges, and meditating revolt. She may 
form new settlements, but they will be for us ; they will become 
part of the United States of America ; and that against all her 
contrivances to prevent it, or without any endeavors of ours to 
promote it. In the first place she cannot draw from them a 
revenue, until they are able to pay one, and when they are so, 
they will be above subjection. Men soon become attached to 
the soil they live upon, and incorporated with the prosperity of 
the place : and it signifies but little what opinions they come over 
with, for time, interest, and new connexions will render them ob- 
solete, and the next generation know nothing of them. 

Were Britain truly wise, she would lay hold of the present 
opportunity to disentangle herself from all continental embarrass- 
ments in North- America, and that not only to avoid future broils 
and troubles, but to save expenses. To speak explicitly on the 
matter, I would not, were I an European power, have Canada, 



356 LETTER TO ABBE RAYNAL. 

under the conditions that Britain must retain it, could it be given 
to me. It is one of those kind of dominions that is, and ever will 
be, a constant charge upon any foreign holder. 

As to Halifax, it will become useless to England after the 
present war, and the loss of the United States. A harbor, when 
the dominion is gone, for the purpose of which only it was wanted, 
can be attended only with expense. There are, I doubt not, 
thousands of people in England, who suppose, that these places 
are a profit to the nation, whereas they are directly the contrary, 
and instead of producing any revenue, a considerable part of the 
revenue of England is annually drawn off, to support the expense 
of holding them. 

Gibraltar is another instance of national ill-policy. A post 
which in time of peace is not wanted, and in time of war is of no 
use, must at all times be useless. Instead of affording protection 
to a navy, it requires the aid of one to maintain it. To suppose 
that Gibraltar commands the Mediterranean, or the pass into it, 
or the trade of it, is to suppose a detected falsehood ; because 
though Britain holds the post, she has lost the other three, and 
every benefit she expected from it. And to say that all this hap- 
pens because it is besieged by land and water, is to say nothing, 
for this will always be the case in time of war, while France and 
Spain keep up superior fleets, and Britain holds the place. So 
that, though, as an impenetrable, inaccessible rock, it may be 
held by the one, it is always in the power of the other to render 
it useless and excessively chargeable. 

I should suppose that one of the principal objects of Spain in 
besieging it, is to show to Britain, that though she may not take 
it, she can command it, that is she can shut it up, and prevent its 
being used as a harbor, though not as a garrison. But the short 
way to reduce Gibraltar is to attack the British fleet ; for Gibraltar 
is as dependant on a fleet for support, as a bird is on its wing fo? 
food, and when wounded there it starves. 

There is another circumstance which the people of England 
have not only not attended to, but seem to be utterly ignorant of, 
and that is, the difference between permanent power and acci- 
dental power, considered in a national sense. 

By permanent power, I mean, a natural, inherent and perpetual 
ability in a nation, which though always in being, may not be 
always in action, or not advantageously directed ; and by acci- 



LETTER TO ABBB RAYNAL. 357 

dental power. I mean, a fortunate or accidental disposition of 
exercise of national strength, in whole or in part. 

There undoubtedly was a time when any one European nation, 
with only eight or ten ships of war, equal to the present ships of 
the line, could have carried terror to all others, who had not began 
to build a navy, however great their natural ability might be for 
that purpose : but this can be considered only as accidental, and 
not as a standard to compare permanent power by, and could last 
no longer than until those powers built as many or more ships 
than the former. After this a larger fleet was necessary, in order 
to be superior ; and a still larger would again supersede it. And 
thus mankind have gone on building fleet upon fleet, as occasion 
or situation dictated. And this reduces it to an original question* 
which is : Which powor can build and man the largest number of 
ships? The natural answer to which is, that power which has 
the largest revenue and the greatest number of inhabitants, pro- 
vided its situation of coast affords sufficient conveniences! 

France being a nation on the continent of Europe, and Britain 
an island in its neighborhood, each of them derived different ideas 
from their different situations. The inhabitants of Britain could 
carry on no foreign trade, nor stir from the spot they dwelt upon, 
without the assistance of shipping ; but this was not the case with 
France. The idea therefore of a navy did not arise to France 
from the same original and immediate necessity which produced 
it to England. But the question is, that when both of them turn 
their attention, and employ their revenues the same way, which 
can be superior 1 

The annual revenue of France is nearly double that of Eng- 
land, and her number of inhabitants more than twice as many. 
Each of them has the same length of coast on the channel, be- 
sides which, France has several hundred miles extent on the bay 
of Biscay, and an opening on the Mediterranean : and every day 
proves that practice and exercise make sailors, as well as soldiers, 
in one country as well as another. 

If, then, Britain can maintain a hundred ships of the line, 
France can as well support a hundred and fifty, because her 
revenues and her population are as equal to the one, as those of 
England are to the other. And the only reason why she has not 
done it, is because she has not till very lately attended to it. But 



LETTER TO ABBE RAYNAL. 

when she sees, as she now does, that a navy is the first engine of 
power, she can easily accomplish it. 

England, very falsely, and ruinously for herself, infers, that 
because she had the advantage of France, while France had the 
smaller navy, that for that reason it is always to be so. Whereas 
it may be clearly seen, that the strength of France has never yet 
been tried on a navy, and that she is able to be as superior to 
England in the extent of a navy, as she is in the extent of her 
revenues and her population. And England may lament the day, 
when, by her insolence and injustice, she provoked in France a 
maritime disposition. 

It is in the power of the combined fleets to conquer every 
island in the West-Indies, and reduce all the British navy in those 
places. For were France and Spain to send their whole naval 
force in Europe to those islands, it would not be in the power of 
Britain to follow them with an equal force. She would still be 
twenty or thirty ships inferior, were she to send every vessel she 
had, and in the mean time all the foreign trade of England would 
lay exposed to the Dutch. 

It is a maxim, which, I am persuaded, will ever hold good, and 
more especially in naval operations, that a great power ought 
never to move in detachments, if it can possibly be avoided ; but 
to go with its whole force to some important object, the reduction 
of which shall have a decisive effect upon the war. Had the 
whole of the French and Spanish fleets in Europe come last 
spring to the West-Indies, every island had been their own, 
Rodney their prisoner, and his fleet their prize. From the United 
States the combined fleets can be supplied with provisions, with- 
out the necessity of drawing them from Europe, which is not the 
case with England. 

Accident has thrown some advantages in the way of England, 
which, from the inferiority of her navy, she had not a right to 
expect. For though she had been obliged to fly before the com- 
bined fleets, yet Rodney has twice had the fortune to fall in with 
detached squadrons, to which he was superior in numbers : the 
first off cape St. Vincent, where he had nearly two to one, and 
the other in the West-Indies, where he had a majority of six ships. 
Victories of this kind almost produce themselves. They are 
won without honor, and suffered without disgrace : and are 
ascribable to the chance of meeting, not to the superiority of 



LETTER TO ABBE RAYNAL. 359 

fighting. For the same admiral, under whom they were obtain- 
ed, was unable, in three former engagements, to make the least 
impression on a fleet consisting of an equal number of ships with 
his own, and compounded for the events by declining the actions.* 

To conclude : if it may be said that Britain has numerous ene- 
mies, it likewise proves that she has given numerous offences. 
Insolence is sure to provoke hatred, whether in a nation or an 
individual. The want of manners in the British court may be 
seen even in its birth-days' and new-years' odes, which are cal- 
culated to infatuate the vulgar, and disgust the man of refinement : 
and her former overbearing rudeness, and insufferable injustice 
on the seas, have made every commercial nation her foe. Her 
fleets were employed as engines of prey ; and acted on the sur- 
face of the deep the character which the shark does beneath it. 
On the other hand, the combined powers are taking a popular 
part, and will render their reputation immortal, by establishing 
the perfect freedom of the ocean, to which all countries have a 
right, and are interested in accomplishing. The sea is the world's 
highway ; and he who arrogates a prerogative over it, transgresses 
the right, and justly brings on himself the chastisement of nations. 

Perhaps it might be of some service to the future tranquillity 
of mankind, were an article introduced into the next general 
peace, that no one nation should, in time of peace, exceed a 
certain number of ships of war. Something of this kind seems 
necessary ; for according to the present fashion, half the world 
will get upon the water, and there appears to be no end to the 
extent to which navies may be carried. Another reason is, that 
navies add nothing to the manners or morals of a people. The 
sequestered life which attends the service, prevents the opportu- 
nities of society, and is too apt to occasion a coarseness of ideas 
and of language, and that more in ships of war than in the com- 
mercial employ ; because in the latter they mix more with the 
world, and are nearer related to it. I mention this remark as a 
general one : and not applied to any one country more than to 
another. 

Britain has now had the trial of above seven years, with an 
expense of nearly an hundred million pounds sterling ; and every 
month in which she delays to conclude a peace, costs her another 

* See the accounts, either English or French, of three actions, in the West 
Indies, between count de Guichen and admiral Rodney, in 1780. 



360 LETTER TO ABBE RAYNAL. 

million sterling, over and above her ordinary expenses of govern- 
ment, which are a million more ; so that her total monthly expense 
is two million pounds sterling, which is equal to the whole yearly 
expense of America, all charges included. Judge then who is 
best able to continue it. 

She has likewise many atonements to make to an injured world, 
as well in one quarter as in another. And instead of pursuing 
that temper of arrogance, which serves only to sink her in the 
esteem, and entail on her the dislike of all nations, she would do 
well to reform her manners, retrench her expenses, live peaceably 
with her neighbors, and think of war no more. 

Philadelphia, August 21, 1782, 



END OF THE LETTER TO ABBE RAYNAL. 



LETTER FROM THOMAS PAINE TO 
GENERAL WASHINGTON. 



Bordentown, Sept. 7, 1782. 
Sir, 

I have the honour of presenting you with fifty copies of my 
Letter to the Abbe Raynal, for the use of the army, and to re- 
peat to you my acknowledgments for your friendship. 

I fully believe we have seen our worst days over. The spirit 
of the war, on the part of the enemy, is certainly on the de- 
cline, full as much as we think for. I draw this opinion not 
only from the present promising appearance of things, and the 
difficulties we know the British cabinet is in ; but I add to it 
the peculiar effect which certain periods of time have, more or 
less, upon all men. 

The British have accustomed themselves to think of seven 
years in a manner different to other portions of time. They 
acquire this partly by habit, by reason, by religion, and by su- 
perstition. They serve seven years apprenticeship — they elect 
their parliament for seven years — they punish by seven years 
transportation, or the duplicate or triplicate of that term — they 
let their leases in the same manner, and they read that Jacob 
served seven years for one wife, and after that seven years for 
another ; and this particular period of time, by a variety of 
concurrences, has obtained an influence in their mind. 

They have now had seven years of war, and are no further 
on the Continent than when they began. The superstitious 
and populous part will therefore conclude that it is not to be, 
and the rational part of them will think they have tried an un- 
successful and expensive project long enough, and by these 
two joining issue in the same eventual opinion, the obstinate 
part among them will be beaten out; unless, consistent with 
their former sagacity, they should get over the matter by an 



LETTER FROM PAINE TO WASHINGTON. 

act of parliament, " to bind time in all cases whatsoever" or 
declare him a rebel. 

I observe the affair of Captain Asgill seems to die away : — 
very probably it has been protracted on the part of Clinton 
and Carleton, to gain time, to state the case to the British mi- 
nistry, where following close on that of Colonel Haynes, it 
will create new embarrassments to them. — For my own part, 
I am fully persuaded that a suspension of his fate, still holding 
it in terrorem, will operate on a greater quantity of their pas- 
sions and vices, and restrain them more than his execution 
would do. — However, the change of measures which seems 
now to be taking place, gives somewhat of a new cast to for- 
mer designs ; and if the case, without the execution, can be so 
managed as to answer all the purposes of the latter, it will look 
much better hereafter, when the sensations that now provoke, 
and the circumstances that would justify his exit, shall be for- 
gotten. 

I am your Excellency's obliged 

and obedient humble servant, 

THOMAS PAINE. 
His Excellency General Washington. 



LETTER FROM GENERAL WASHINGTON 
TO THOMAS PAINE. 



Head Quarters, Verplank's Point, 

Sept. 18, 1782. 
Sir, 

I have the pleasure to acknowledge your favour of the 7th 
inst., informing me of your proposal to present me with fifty 
copies of your last publication, for the amusement of the 
army. 

For this intention you have my sincere thanks, not only 
on my own account, but for the pleasure, I doubt not, the 
gentlemen of the army will receive from the perusal of your 
pamphlets. 

Your observations on the period of seven years, as it ap- 
plies itself to, and affects British minds, are ingenious, and I 
wish it may not fail of its effects in the present instance. The 
measures, and the policy of the enemy, are at present in great 
perplexity and embarrassment — but I have my fears, whether 
their necessities (which are the only operative motive with 
them) are yet arrived to that point, which must drive them un- 
avoidably into what they will esteem disagreeable and disho- 
nourable terms of peace — such, for instance, as an absolute, un- 
equivocal admission of American Independence, upon the terms 
on which she can alone accept it. 

For this reason, added to the obstinacy of the king — and 
the probable consonant principles of some of his principal 
ministers, I have not so full a confidence in the success of the 
present negociation for peace as some gentlemen entertain. 

Should events prove my jealousies to be ill founded, I shall 
make myself happy under the mistake — consoling myself with 
the idea of having erred on the safest side, and enjoying with 



364 LETTER FROM WASHINGTON TO PAINE. 

as much satisfaction as any of my countrymen, the pleasing 
issue of our severe contest. 

The case of Captain Asgill has indeed been spun out to a 
great length — but, with you, I hope that its termination will 
not be unfavourable to this country. 

I am, sir, with great esteem and regard, 

Your most obedient servant, 

G. WASHINGTON. 
Thomas Paine, Esq. 



DISSERTATIONS ON GOVERNMENT, 



THE 



AFFMRS OF THE BANK, 



PAPER HONEY. 



VOL. 1, 



PREFACE. 



I here present the public with a new performance. Some 
parts of* it are more particularly adapted to the state of Pennsyl- 
vania, on the present state of its affairs : but there are others 
which are on a larger scale. The time bestowed on this work 
has not been long, the whole of it being written and printed dur- 
ing the short recess of the assembly. 

As to parties, merely considered as such, I am attached to no 
particular one. There are such things as right and wrong in the 
world, and so far as these are parties against each other, the sig* 
nature of Common Sense, is properly employed. 

THOMAS PAINE. 
Philadelphia, Feb. 18, 1786. 



DISSERTATIONS ON GOVERN 
MENT, &c. 



Every government, let its form be what it may, contains within 
itself a principle common to all, which is, that of a sovereign 
power, or a power over which there is a control, and which con- 
trols all others : and as it is impossible to construct a form of 
government in which this power does not exist, so there must of 
necessity be a place, if it may be so called, for it to exist in. 

In despotic monarchies this power is lodged in a single person, 
or sovereign. His will is law ; which he declares, alters or 
revokes as he pleases, without being accountable to any power for 
so doing. Therefore, the only modes of redress, in countries so 
governed, are by petition or insurrection. And this is the reason 
we so frequently hear of insurrections in despotic governments ; 
for as there are but two modes of redress, this is one of them. 

Perhaps it may be said that as the united ressistance of the 
people is able, by force, to control the will of the sovereign, that 
therefore, the controlling power lodges in them ; but it must be 
understood that I am speaking of such powers only as are consti- 
tuent parts of the government, not of those powers which are ex- 
ternally applied to resist and overturn it. 



366 DISSERTATIONS UN GOVERNMENT, &C. 

In republics, such as those established in America, the sove 
reign power, 01 the power over which there is no control, and which 
controls all others, remains where nature placed it — in the people ; 
for the people in America are the fountain of power. It remains 
there as a matter of right, recognized in the constitutions of the 
country, and the exercise of it is constitutional and legal. This 
sovereignty is exercised in electing and deputing a certain number 
of persons to represent and act for the whole, and who if they do 
not act right, may be displaced by the same power that placed 
them there, and others elected and deputed in their stead, and the 
wrong measures of former representatives corrected and brought 
right by this means. Therefore the republican form and principle 
leaves no room for insurrection, because it provides and estab- 
lishes a rightful means in its stead. 

In countries under a despotic form of government, the exercise 
of this power is an assumption of sovereignty; a wresting it from 
the person in whose hand their form of government has placed it, 
and the exercise of it is there styled rebellion. Therefore the 
despotic form of government knows no intermediate space between 
being slaves and being rebels. 

I shall in this place offer an observation which, though not im- 
mediately connected with my subject, is very naturally deduced 
from it, which is that the nature, if I may so call it, of a govern- 
ment over any people, may be ascertained from the modes which 
the people pursue to obtain redress of grievances ; for like causes 
will produce like effects. And therefore the government which 
Britain attempted to erect over America could be no other than a 
despotism, because it left to the Americans no other modes of re- 
dress than those which are left to people under despotic govern- 
ments, petition and resistance : and the Americans, without ever 
attending to a comparison on the case, went into the same steps 
which such people go into, because no other could be pursued : 
and this similarity of effects leads up to, and ascertains the simi- 
larity of the causes or governments which produced them. 

But to return. The repository where the sovereign power is 
placed is the first criterion of distinction between a country 
under a despotic form of government and a free country. In 
a country under a despotic government, the sovereign is the 
only free man in it. In a republic, the people retaining the 
sovereignty themselves, naturally and necessarily retain their 



DISSERTATIONS ON GOVERNMENT, &C. 367 

freedom with it : for wherever the sovereignty is, there must 
the freedom be. 

As the repository where the sovereign power is lodged is the 
first criterion of distinction, so the second is the principles on which 
it. is administered. 

A despotic government knows no principle but will. — What- 
ever the sovereign wills to do, the government admits him the 
inherent right, and the uncontrolled power of doing. He is 
restrained by no fixed rule of right and wrong, for he makes 
the right and wrong himself, and as he pleases. If he hap- 
pens (for a miracle may happen) to be a man of consummate 
wisdom, justice and moderation, of a mild affectionate disposi- 
tion, disposed to business, and understanding and promoting the 
general good, all the beneficial purposes of government will be 
answered under his administration, and the people so governed, 
may, while this is the case, be prosperous and easy. But as there 
can be no security that this disposition will last, and this adminis- 
tration continue, and still less security that his successor shall 
have the same qualities and pursue the same measures ; there- 
fore no people exercising their reason, and understanding their 
rights, would, of their own choice, invest any one man with such 
a power. 

Neither is it consistent to suppose the knowledge of any one 
man competent to the exercise of such a power. A sove- 
reign of this sort, is brought up in such a distant line of life ; 
lives so remote from the people, and from a knowledge of every 
thing which relates to their local situations and interests, that he 
can know nothing from experience and observation, and all which 
he does know he must be told. Sovereign power without sove- 
reign knowledge, that is, a full knowedge of all the matters over 
which that power is to be exercised, is a something which contra- 
dicts itself. 

There is a species of sovereign power in a single person, which 
is very proper when applied to a commander-in-chief over an 
army, so far as relates to the military government of an army, and 
the condition and purpose of an army constitute the reason why 
it is so. 

In an army every man is of the same profession, that is, he is 
a soldier, and the commander-in-chief is a soldier too : therefore 
the knowledge necessary to the exercise of the power is within 



368 DISSERTATIONS ON GOVERNMENT, &C# 

himself. By understanding what a soldier is, he comprehends the 
local situation, interest and duty of every man within what may be 
called, the dominion of his command ; and, therefore, the condi- 
tion and circumstances of an army make a fitness for the exercise 
of the power. 

The purpose, likewise, or object of an army, is another reason : 
for this power in a commander-in-chief, though exercised over 
the army, is not exercised against it ; but is exercised through or 
over the army against the enemy. Therefore the enemy, and not 
the people, is the object it is directed to. Neither is it exercised 
over an army, for the purpose of raising a revenue from it, but to 
promote its combined interest, condense its powers, and give it 
capacity for action. 

But all these reasons cease when sovereign power is trans- 
ferred from the commander of an army to the commander of a 
nation, and entirely looses its fitness when applied to govern sub- 
jects following occupations, as it governs soldiers following 
arms. A nation is quite another element, and every thing in it 
differs not only from each other, but all of them differ from 
those of an army. A nation is composed of distinct, uncon- 
nected individuals, following various trades, employments and 
pursuits : continually meeting, crossing, uniting, opposing and 
separating from eacn other, as accident, interest and circum- 
stance shall direct. An army has but one occupation and but 
one interest. 

Another very material matter in which an army and a nation 
differ, is that of temper. An army may be said to have but 
one temper ; for however the natural temper of the persons com- 
posing the army may differ from each other, there is a second 
temper takes place of the first : a temper formed by discipline, 
mutuality of habits, union of objects and pursuits, and the style 
of military manners : but this can never be the case among all 
the individuals of a nation. Therefore the fitness, arising from 
those circumstances, which disposes an army to the command ot 
a single person, and the fitness of a single person for that com- 
mand, is not to be found either in one or the other, when we come 
to consider them as a sovereign and a nation. 

Having already shown what a despotic government is, and how 
it is administered, I now come to show what the administration of 
a republic is. 



DISSERTATIONS ON GOVERNMENT, &C 369 

The administration of a republic is supposed to be directed 
by certain fundamental principles of right and justice, from 
which there cannot, because there ought not to be any devia- 
tion ; and whenever any deviation appears, there is a kind of 
stepping out of the republican principle, and an approach towards 
the despotic one. This administration is executed by a select 
number of persons, periodically chosen by the people, who act as 
representatives and in behalf of the whole, and who are supposed 
to enact the same laws, and pursue the same line of administra- 
tion, as the people would do were they all assembled together. 

The public good is to be their object. It is therefore necessa- 
ry to understand what public good is. 

Public good i> not a term opposed to the good of individuals; 
on the contrary, it is the good of every individual collected. It 
is the good of all, because it ii the good of every one : for as the 
public body is every individual collected, so the public good is the 
collected good of those individual-. 

The foundation-principle of public good is justice, and wherever 
justice is impartially administered the public good is promoted ; for 
U it is to the good of < reiy man that no injustice be done to him, 
so likewise il is to bis good thai the principle which secures him 
should not be violated in the person of another, because such a 
violation weakens his security, and leaves to chance what ought 
to be to him a rock to stand on. 

P>ut in order to understand more minutely, how the public 
good ifl to be promoted, and the manner in which the rcpresen- 

m are to act to promote it, we must have recourse to the 

original or first principles, on which the people formed them- 
selves mto a republic* 

When a people agree to form themselves into a republic, (for 
tiie word republic means the public u<>od y or the good of the whole, 
in contradistinction to the despotic form, which makes the good of 
the sovereign, or of one man, the only object of the government,) 
when I say, they agree to do this, it is to be understood, that they 
mutually resolve and pledge themselves to each other, rich and 
poor alike, to support and maintain this rule of equal justice among 
them. They therefore renounce not only the despotic form, but 
the despotic principle, as well of governing as of being governed 
by mere will and power, and substitute in its place a government 
of justice. 



VOL. I. 



47 



370 DISSERTATIONS 3N GOVERNMENT, &C« 

By this mutual compact, the citizens of a republic put it out of 
their power, that is, they renounce, as detestable, the power of 
exercising, at any future time, any species of despotism over each 
other, or doing a thing not right in itself, because a majority of 
them may have strength of numbers sufficient to accomplish it. 

In this pledge and compact* lies the foundation of the republic : 
and the security to the rich and the consolation to the poor is, that 

* This pledge ana compact is contained in the declaration of rights prefixea 
to the constitution, and is as follows : 

I. That all men are bom equally free and independent, and have certain 
natural, inherent and unalienable rights, amongst which are, the enjoying and 
defending life and liberty, acquiring, possessing and protecting property, and 
pursuing and obtaining happiness and safety. 

II. That all men have a natural and unalienable right to worship almighty 
God, according to the dictates of their own consciences and understanding: 
and that no man ought or of right can be compelled to attend any religious 
worship, or erect or support any place of worship, or maintain any ministry, 
contrary to, or against, his own free will and consent: nor can any man, who 
acknowledges the being of a God, be justly deprived or abridged of any civil 
right as a citizen, on account of his religious sentiments or peculiar mode of 
religious worship: and that no authority can or ought to be vested in, or as- 
sumed by, any power whatever, that shall in any case interfere with, or in 

•any manner control, the right of conscience in the free exercise of religious 
worship. 

III. That the people of this state have the sole, exclusive and inherent right 
of governing and regulating the internal police of the same. 

IV. That all power being originally inherent in, and consequently derived 
from, the people ; therefore, all officers of government, whether legislative or 
executive, are their txiistees and servants, and at all times accountable to 
them. 

V. That government is, or ought to be, instituted for the common benefit, 
protection and security of the people, nation or community; and not for the 
particular emolument or advantage of any single man, family, or set of men, 
who are a part only of that community : and that the community hath an in- 
dubitable, unalienable and indefeasible right to reform, alter or abolish govern- 
ment in such manner as shall be by thatcommunity judged most conducive to 
the public weal. 

VI. That those who are employed in the legislative and executive business 
of the state may be restrained from oppression^ the people have a right, at such 
periods as they may think proper, to reduce their public officers to a private 
station, and supply the vacancies by certain and regular elections. 

VII. That all elections ought to be free ; and that all free men having a suf- 
ficient evident common interest with, and attachment to the community, have 
a right to elect officers, or to be elected into office. 

( VII [. That every member of society hath a right to be protected in the en 
joyment of life, liberty and property, and therefore is bound to contribute hit 
proportion towards the expense of that protection, and yield his personal scr 
vice when necessary, or an equivalent thereto ; but no part of a man's pro 
perty can be justly taken from him, or applied to public uses, without his owj 
consent, or that of his legal representatives : nor can any man who is con 
scientiously scrupulous of bearing arms, be justly compelled thereto, if he wil; 

Eay such equivalent : nor are the people bound by any laws, but such as they 
ave in like manner assented to, for their common good. 
IX. That, in all prosecutions for criminal offences, a man hath a right to be 
heard by himself and his counsel, to demand the cause and nature of his ac- 
cusation, to be confronted with the witnesses, to call for evidence in his fa- 
vour, and a speedy public trial, by an impartial jury of the country, without 
the, unanimous consent of which jury he cannot be found guilty I nor can he 



IM5SF.UTATION8 ON GOVERNMENT, &C. 371 

what each man has is his own ; that no despotic sovereign can 
take it from him, and that the common cementing principle which 
holds all the parts of a republic together, secures him likewise from 
the despotism of numbers : for despotism may be more effectually 
acted by many over a few, than by one man over all. 

Therefore, in order to know how far the power of an assembly, 
or a bottte of representatives can act in administering the affairs 
of a republic, we must examine how far the power of the people 
extends under the original compact they have made with each 
other ; for the power of the representatives is in many cases less, 
but never can be greater than that of the people represented ; and 
whatever the people in their mutual original compact have re- 
nounced the power of doing towards, or acting over each other, 
the representatives cannot assume (he power to do, because, as I 
have already said, the power of the representatives cannot be 
greater than that of the people they represent 

he compelled to give evidence against himself; nor can anv man be justly 
deprived of his liberty, except by the laws of the land, i of his 

X. Thai the people have a right to hold themselves, their boui 

"ins free from search or seizure ; and nta without 

oaths or affirmations, first made, affording a sufficient foundation for | 
and whereby any officer or messenger may be commanded or required to 
inspected places, or to seize any person or persons, his or their pro- 

Eerty, not particularly described, arc contrary to that right, and (audit, not to 
mted. 

XI. That m controv* tecting property, and insults between man 
and mail, the parties have a right to trial by jury, which ought to be held 
sacred. 

Xil. That the people have a right to freedom of speech, and of writing 
and publishing their sentiments: therefore the freedom of the press ought 

AOl to be restrained. 

\III. Thai the people have a rhdit to hear arms for the dun DCe of them- 
selves and the BtaU — and as Btanding armies, in the time of peace, are dan- 
« rous to liberty, they ought not to be k< pi up — and that the military should 
ivder a Btrict subordination to, and govern d by, the civil power. 

XIV. That a frequent recurrence to fundamental principles, and a firm 
-nee to justice, moderation, temperance, industry and frugality are ab- 
solutely necessary to preserve, the blessings of liberty and keep a govern- 
ment free — the people ought therefore to pay particular attention to these 
points in the choice of officers and representatives, and have a right to exact 
a due and constant regard to them, from their legislators and magistrates, in 
the making and executing such laws as are necessary for the good govern- 
ment of the state. 

XV. That nil men have a natural inherent right to emigrate from one state 
to another that will receive them, or to form a new state in vacant countries, 
or in such countries as they con purchase, whenever they think that thereby 
they may promote their own happiness. 

XTI. That the people have a right to assemble together, to consult for their 
common good, to instruct their representatives, and to apply r to the legislature 
for redress of grievances, by address, petition, or remonstrance 



372 DISSERTATIONS ON GOVERNMENT, &C. 

In this place it naturally presents itself that the people in their 
original compact of equal justice or first principles of a republic, 
renounced, as despotic, detestable and unjust, the assuming a 
riffht of breaking and violating their engagements, contracts and 
compacts with, or defrauding, imposing or tyrannizing over each 
other, and therefore the representatives cannot make an act to do it 
for them, and any such kind of act would be an attempt to depose 
not the personal sovereign, but the sovereign principle of the re- 
public, and to introduce despotism in its stead. 

It may in this place be proper to distinguish between that spe- 
cies of sovereignty which is claimed and exercised by despotic 
monarchs, and that sovereignty which the citizens of a republic 
inherit and retain. The sovereignty of a despotic monarch as- 
sumes the power of making wrong right, or right wrong, as he 
pleases or as it suits him. The sovereignty in a republic is ex- 
ercised to keep right and wrong in their proper and distinct places, 
and never to suffer the one to usurp the place of the other. A 
republic, properly understood, is a sovereignty of justice, in con- 
tradistinction to a sovereignty of will. 

Our experience in republicanism is yet so slender, that it is 
much to be doubted, whether all our public laws and acts are 
consistent with, or can be justified on, the principles of a republi- 
can government. 

We have been so much habited to act in committees at the com- 
mencement of the dispute, and during the interregnum of govern- 
ment, and in many cases since, and to adopt expedients warranted 
by necessity, and to permit to ourselves a discretionary use of 
power, suited to the spur and exigency of the moment, that a man 
transferred from a committee to a seat in the legislature, imper- 
ceptibly takes with him the ideas and habits he has been accus- 
tomed to, and continues to think like a committee-man instead 
of a legislator, and to govern by the spirit rather than by the rule 
of the constitution and the principles of the republic. 

Having already stated that the power of the representatives 
can never exceed the power of the people whom they represent, I 
now proceed to examine more particularly, what the power of 
the representatives is. 

It is, in the first place, the power of acting as legislators in 
making laws — and in the second place, the power of acting in cer- 
tain cases, as agents or negotiators for the commonwealth. 



DISSERTATIONS ON GOVERNMENT, &C. 373 

for such purposes as the circumstances of the commonwealth 
require. 

A very strange confusion of ideas, dangerous to the credit, sta- 
bility, and the good and honor of the commonwealth, has arisen, 
by confounding those two distinct powers and things together, and 
blending every act of the assembly, of whatever kind it may be, 
under one general name, of Laws of the Commonwealth, and 
thereby creating an opinion (which is truly of the despotic kind) 
that every succeeding assembly has an equal power over every 
transaction, as well as law, done by a former assembly. 

All laws are acts, but all acts are not laws. Many of the acts 
of the assembly are acts of agency or negociation, that is, they 
are acts of contract and agreement, on the part of the state, with 
certain persons therein mentioned, and for certain purposes therein 
recited. An act of this kind, after it has passed the house, is of 
the nature of a deed or contract, signed, scaled and delivered ; 
and subject to the same general laws and principles of justice as 
all other deeds and contracts are : for in a transaction of this 
kind, the state stands as an individual, and can be known in no 
other character in a court of justice. 

By " laws," as distinct from the agency transactions, or matters 
of negociation, are to be comprehended all those public acts of 
the assembly or commonwealth, which have a universal operation, 
or apply themselves to every individual of the commonwealth. 
Of this kind are the laws for the distribution and administration 
jf justice, for the preservation of the peace, for the security of 
property, for raising the necessary revenue by just proportions, &c. 

Acts of this kind are properly laws, and they may be altered, 
amended and repealed, or others substituted in their places, as 
experience shall direct, for the better effecting the purpose for 
which they were intended : and the right and power of the assem 
bly to do this is derived from the right and power which the people, 
were they all assembled together, instead of being represented, 
would have to do the same thing : because, in acts or laws of this 
kind, there is no other party than the public. The law, or the 
alteration, or the repeal, is for themselves ; — and whatever the 
effects may be, it falls on themselves ; — if for the better, they 
have the benefit of it — if for the worse, they suffer the incon- 
venience. No violence to any one is here offered — no breach 
of faith is here committed. It is therefore one of those rights 



374 DISSERTATIONS ON GOVERNMENT, &C. 

and powers which is within the sense, meaning and limits of the 
original compact of justice which they formed with each other as 
the foundation-principle of the republic, and being one of those 
rights and powers, it devolves on their representatives by dele- 
gation. 

As it is not my intention (neither is it within the limits assigned 
to this work) to define every species of what may be called laws, 
(but rather to distinguish that part in which the representatives act 
as agents or negotiators for the state from the legislative part,) 
I shall pass on to distinguish and describe those acts of the 
assembly which are acts of agency or negotiation, and to show 
that they are different in their nature, construction and operation, 
from legislative acts, so likewise the power and authority of the 
assembly over them, after they are passed, is different. 

It must occur to every person on the first reflection, that the 
affairs and circumstances of a commonwealth require other busi- 
ness to be done besides that of making laws, and, consequently, 
that the different kinds of business cannot all be classed under 
one name, or be subject to one and the same rule of treatment. — 
But to proceed — 

By agency transactions, or matters of negociation, done by the 
assembly, are to be comprehended all that kind of public business, 
which the assembly, as representatives of the republic, transact in 
its behalf, with a certain person or persons, or part or parts of the 
republic, for purposes mentioned in the act, and which the assem- 
bly confirm and ratify on the part of the commonwealth, by affix- 
ing to it the seal of the state. 

An act of this kind, differs from a law of the before-mentioned 
kind ; because here are two parties and there but one, and the 
parties are bound to perform different and distinct parts ; whereas, 
in the before-mentioned law, every man's part was the same. 

These acts, therefore, though numbered among the laws, are 
evidently distinct therefrom, and are not of the legislative kind. 
The former are laws for the government of the commonwealth ; 
these are transactions of business, such as, selling and conveying 
an estate belonging to the public, or buying one ; acts for borrow- 
ing money, and fixing with the lender the terms and modes of 
payment ; acts of agreement and contract, with a certain person 
or persons, for certain purposes : and, in short, every act in which 
two parties, the state being one, are particularly mentioned or 



DISSERTATIONS ON GOVERNMENT, &C. 375 

described, and in which the form and nature of a bargain or con- 
tract is comprehended. — These, if for custom and uniformity sake 
we call by the name of /ates, they are not laws for the government 
of the commonwealth, but for the government of the contracting 
parties, as all deeds and contracts are ; and are not, properly 
speaking, acts of the assembly, but joint acts, or acts of the assem- 
bly in behalf of the commonwealth on one part, and certain per- 
sons therein mentioned on the other part. 

Acts of this kind are distinguishable into two classes : — 

1st, Those wherein the matters inserted in the act have already 
been settled and adjusted between the state on one part, and the 
persons therein mentioned on the other part. In this case the act 
is the completion and ratification of the contract or matters there- 
in recited. It is in fact a deed signed, sealed and delivered. 

2d, Those arts wherein the matters have not been already 
agreed upon, and wherein the act only holds forth certain proposi- 
tions and terms to be accepted of and acceded to. 

I shall give an instance of each of those acts. First, the state 
wants the loan of a sum of money — certain persons make an offer 
to government to lend that sum, and send in their proposals : the 
government accept these proposals, and all the matters of the loan 
and the payment are agreed on; and an act is passed according to 
the usual form of passing acts, ratifying and confirming this agree- 
ment. This act is final. 

In the second case, — the state, as in the preceding one, wants a 
loan of money — the assembly passes an act holding forth the terms 
on which it will borrow and pay : this act has no force until the 
propositions and terms are accepted of and acceded to by some 
person or persons, and when those terms are accepted of and 
complied with, the act is binding on the state. — But if at the 
meeting of the next assembly, or any other, the whole sum intend- 
ed to be borrowed, should not be borrowed, that assembly may 
stop where they are, and discontinue proceeding with the loan, or 
make new propositions and terms for the remainder ; but so far 
as the subscriptions have been filled up, and the terms complied 
with, it is, as in the first case, a signed deed : and in the same 
manner are all acts, let the matters in them be what they may, 
wherein, as I have before mentioned, the state on one part, and 
certain individuals on the other part, are parties in the act. 



376 DISSERTATIONS ON GOVERNMENT, &C. 

If the state should become a bankrupt, the creditors, as in all 
",ases of bankruptcy, will be sufferers ; they will have but a divi- 
dend for the whole : but this is not a dissolution of the contract, 
but an accommodation of it, arising from necessity. And so in 
all cases of this kind, if an inability takes place on either side, the 
contract cannot be performed, and some accommodation must be 
gone into, or the matter falls through of itself. 

It may likewise, though it ought not to happen, that in perform 
ing the matters, agreeably to the terms of the act, inconveniences, 
unforeseen at the time of making the act, may arise to either or 
both parties : in this case, those inconveniences maybe removed by 
the mutual consent and agreement of the parties, and each find its 
benefit in so doing : for in a republic it is the harmony of its parts 
that constitutes their several and mutual good. 

But the acts themselves are legally binding, as much as if they 
had been made between two private individuals. The greatness 
of one party cannot give it a superiority or advantage over tho 
other. The state, or its representatives, the assembly, has no 
more power over an act of this kind, after it has passed, than if the 
state was a private person. It is the glory of a republic to have 
it so, because it secures the individual from becoming the prey of 
power, and prevents might from overcoming right. 

If any difference or dispute arise afterwards between the state 
and the individuals with whom the agreement is made respecting 
the contract, or the meaning, or extent of any of the matters con- 
tained in the act, which may affect the property or interest of 
either, such difference or dispute must be judged of, and decided 
upon, by the laws of the land, in a court of justice and trial by 
jury ; that is, by the laws of the land already in being at the time 
such act and contract was made. — No law made afterwards can 
apply to the case, either directly, or by construction or implica- 
tion : for such a law would be a retrospective law, or a law made 
after the fact, and cannot even be produced in court as applying 
to the case before it for judgment. 

That this is justice, that it is the true principle of republican 
government, no man will be so hardy as to deny. — If, therefore, a 
lawful contract or agreement, sealed and ratified, cannot be affec- 
ted or altered by any act made afterwards, how much more incon- 
sistent and irrational, despotic and unjust would it be, to think of 



DISSERTATIONS ON GOVERNMENT, &C. ZTt 

making an act with the professed intention of breaking up a con 
tract already signed and scaled. 

That it is possible an assembly, in the heat and indiscretion of 
party, and meditating on power rather than on the principle by 
which all power in a republican government is governed, that of 
equal justice, may fall into the error of passing such an act, 
is admitted ; — but it would be an actless act, an act that goes for 
nothing, an act which the courts of justice, and the established 
laws of the land, could know nothing of. 

Because such an act would be an act of one party only, not 
only without, but against the consent of the other ; and, therefore, 
( annot be produced to afied a contract made between the two.— 
That the violation of a contract should be set up as a justification 
to the violator, would be the aame thing aa to Bay, that a man by 
dug his promi ! from the obligation of it, or that by 

ling the laws, he exempts himself from the punishment 
of them. 

Besides the. constitutional and legal reasons why an assembly 
lot, of its own ad and authority, undo or make void a contract 

made between die state (by a former assembly) and certain indi- 
\ tduals, may be added, a hat may be called, the natural reasons, or 
those reasons which the plain rules of common sense point out to 
- man. Among which arc the following i 

The principals, or real parties in the contract, arc the state and 
the persons contracted with. The assembly is not a party, but an 
agent in behalf of the state authorised and empowered to transact 
Shirs 

Therefore it is the Btate that is bound on one part and certain 
individuals on the other part, and the performance of the contract, 
according to the conditions of it, devolves on succeeding assem- 
blies, not as principals, but as agents. 

Therefore, for the next or any other assembly to undertake to 
dissolve the state from its obligation is an assumption of power of 
a novel and extraordinary kind. — It is the servant attempting to 
free his master. 

The election of new assemblies following each other makes no 
difference in the nature of the thing. The state is still the 
same state. The public is still the same body. These do not 
annually expire though the time of an assembly does. These are 
not new-created every year, nor can they be displaced from their 

vol i 48 



378 DISSERTATIONS ON GOVERNMENT, &C 

original standing ; but are a perpetual, permanent body, always 
in being and still the same. 

But if we adopt the vague, inconsistent idea that every new 
assembly has a full and complete authority over every act done 
by the state in a former assembly, and confound together laws, 
contracts, and every species of public business, it will lead us into 
a wilderness of endless confusion and insurmountable difficulties. 
It would be declaring an assembly despotic for the time being. — 
Instead of a government of established principles administered by 
established rules, the authority of government by being strained so 
high, would, by the same rule, be reduced proportionably as low, 
and would be no other than that of a committee of the state, 
acting with discretionary powers for one year. Every new 
election would be a new revolution, or it would suppose the 
public of the former year dead and a new public in its place. 

Having now endeavoured to fix a precise idea to, and distin- 
guish between, legislative acts and acts of negotiation and agency, 
I shall proceed to apply this distinction to the case now in dispute, 
respecting the charter of the bank. 

The charter of the bank, or what is the same thing, the act for 
incorporating it, is to all intents and purposes an act of nogotiation 
and contract, entered into, and confirmed between the state on 
one part, and certain persons mentioned therein on the other part. 
The purpose for which the act was done on the part of the state 
is therein recited, viz, the support which the finances of the 
country would derive therefrom. The incorporating clause is the 
condition or obligation on the part of the state ; and the obligation 
on the part of the bank, is " that nothing contained in that act 
shall be construed to authorise the said corporation to exercise 
any powers in this state repugnant to the laws or constitution 
thereof." 

Here are all the marks and evidences of a contract. The 
parties — the purport — and the reciprocal obligations. 

That this is a contract, or a joint act, is evident from its being 
in the power of either of the parties to have forbidden or prevented 
its being done. The state could not force the stockholders of the 
bank to be a corporation, and therefore as their consent was 
necessary to the making the act, their dissent would have pre- 
vented its being made ; so on the other hand, as the bank could 
not force the state to incorporate them, the consent or dissent of 



DISSERTATION ON GOVERNMENT, &C 379 

Hie state would have had the same effect to do, or to prevent its 
being done ; and as neither of the parties could make the act 
alone, for the same reason can neither of them dissolve it alone : 
but this is not the case with a law or act of legislation, and 
therefore the difference proves it to be an act of a different kind. 

The bank may forfeit the charter by delinquency, but the 
delinquency must be proved and established by a legal process in 
a court of justice and trial by jury ; for the state, or the assembly, 
is not to l>c a judge in its own case, but must come to the laws of 
the land lor judgment ; for that which is law for the individual, is 
likewise law for the state. 

Before I enter further into this affair, I shall go back to the 
circumstances of the country, and the condition the government 
was in, for souk- time before, as well as at the time it entered into 
Element with the bank, and this act of incorporation was 
<l : for the government of this state, and I suppose the same 
of the rest, were then in want of two of the most essential matters 
which governments could be destitute of — money and credit. 

In looking back to those times, and bringing forward some of 
the circumstances attending them, I feel myself entering on 
unpleasant and disagreeable ground ; because some of the mat 
ten which the attack on the bank now make it necessary to state, 
ID order to bring the affair fully before the public, will not add 
Ik. nor to those who have promoted that measure and carried it 
through the late house of assembly ; and for whom, though my 
own judgment and opinion on the case oblige me to differ from, I 
retain my esteem, and the social remembrance of times past. 
But, I trust, these gentlemen will do me the justice to recollect 
my exceeding earnestness with them, last spring, when the attack 
on the bank first broke out; for it clearly appeared to me one of 
those overheated measures, which, neither the country at large, 
nor their own constituents, would justify them in, when it came 
to be fully understood ; for however high a party measure may be 
carried in an assembly, the people out of doors are all the while 
following their several occupations and employments, minding 
their farms and their business, and take their own time and leisure 
to judge of public measures ; the consequence of which is, that 
they often judge in a cooler spirit than their representatives act in. 

It may be easily recollected that the present bank was preceded 
by, and rose out of a former one, called the Pennsylvania bank. 



380 DISSERTATIONS ON GOVERNMENT, &C. 

which hegan a few months before ; the occasion of which I shall 
briefly state. 

In the spring of 1780, the Pennsylvania assembly was com- 
posed of many of the same members, and nearly all of the same 
connexion, which composed the late house that began the attack 
on the bank. I served as clerk of the assembly of 1780, which 
station I resigned at the end of the year, and accompanied a much 
lamented friend, the late colonel John Laurens, on an embassy 
to France. 

The spring of 1780 was marked with an accumulation of mis- 
fortunes. The reliance placed on the defence of Charleston 
failed, and exceedingly lowered or rather depressed the spirits 
of the country. The measures of government, from the want of 
money, means and credit, dragged on like a heavy loaded carriage 
without wheels, and were nearly got to what a countryman would 
understand by a dead pull. 

The assembly of that year met by adjournment at an unusual 
time, the 10th of May, and what particularly added to the afflic- 
tion, was, that so many of the members, instead of spiriting up 
their constituents to the most nervous exertions, came to the 
assembly furnished with petitions to be exempt from paying taxes. 
How the public measures were to be carried on, the country 
defended, and the army recruited, clothed, fed, and paid, when 
the only resource, and that not half sufficient, that of taxes, should 
be relaxed to almost nothing, was a matter too gloomy to look at. 
A language very different from that of petitions ought at this time 
to have been the language of every one. A declaration to have 
stood forth with their lives and fortunes, and a reprobation of 
every thought of partial indulgence would have sounded much 
better than petitions. 

While the assembly was sitting, a letter from the commander- 
in-chief was received by the executive council and transmitted 
to the house. The doors were shut, and it fell officially to me 
to read. 

In this letter the naked truth of things was unfolded. Among 
other informations, the general said, that notwithstanding his 
confidence in the attachment of the army to the cause of the 
country, the distresses of it, from the want of every necessary 
which men could be destitute of, had arisen to such a pitch, that 
the apppearances of mutiny and discontent were so stronglv 



DISSERTATIONS ON GOVERNMENT, &C. 3S1 

marked on the countenance of the army, that he dreaded the event 
of every hour. 

When the letter was read, I observed a despairing silence in the 
house. Nobody spoke for a considerable time. At length a 
member, of whose fortitude to withstand misfortunes I had a high 
opinion, rose : " If," said he, " the account in that letter is a true 
state of things, and we are in the situation there represented, it 
appears to me in vain to contend the matter any longer. We 
may as well give up at first as at last." 

The gentleman who spoke next, was (to the best of my recol- 
lection) a member from Bucks county, who, in a cheerful note, 
endeavored to dissipate the gloom of the house — " Well, well," 
said he, " don't let the house despair, if things are not so well as 
we wish, we must endeavor to make them better." And on a 
motion for adjournment, the conversation went no further. 

There was now no time to lose, and something absolutely 
necessary to be done, which was not within the immediate power 
of the house to do ; for what with the depreciation of the cur- 
rency, the slow operation of taxes, and the petitions to be 
exempted therefrom, the treasury was moneyless, and the govern 
ment creditless. 

If the assembly could not give the assistance which the neces- 
sity of the case immediately required, it was very proper the 
matter should be known by those who either could or would 
endeavor to do it. To conceal the information within the house, 
and not provide the relief which that information required, was 
making no use of the knowledge and endangering the public 
cause. The only thing that now remained, and was capable of 
reaching the case, was private credit, and the voluntary aid oi 
individuals ; and under this impression, on my return from the 
house, I drew out the salary due to me as clerk, enclosed five 
hundred dollars to a gentleman in this city, in part of the whole, 
and wrote fully to him on the subject of our affairs. 

The gentleman to whom this letter was addressed is Mr. Blair 
M'Clenaghan. I mentioned to him, that notwithstanding the 
current opinion that the enemy were beaten from before Charles- 
ton, there were too many reasons to believe the place was then 
taken and in the hands of the enemy : the consequence of which 
would be, that a great part of the British force would return, and 
join at New- York. That our own army required to be augmented, 



382 DISSERTATIONS ON GOVERNMENT, &C. 

ten thousand men, to be able to stand against the combined force 
of the enemy. I informed Mr. M'Clenaghan of general Washing- 
ton's letter, the extreme distresses he was surrounded with, and 
the absolute occasion there was for the citizens to exert them- 
selves at this time, which there was no doubt they would do, if the 
necessity was made known to them ; for that the ability of govern- 
ment was exhausted. I requested Mr. M'Clenaghan to propose 
a voluntary subscription among his friends, and added, that I had 
enclosed five hundred dollars as my mite thereto, and that I would 
increase it as far as the last ability would enable me to go.* 

The next day Mr. M'Clenaghan informed me that he had com- 
municated the contents of the letter at a meeting of gentlemen at 
the coffee-house, and that a subscription was immediately began ; 
that Mr. Robert Morris and himself had subscribed two hundred 
pounds each, in hard money, and that the subscription was going 
on very successfully. This subscription was intended as a dona- 
tion, and to be given in bounties to promote the recruiting service. 
It is dated June 8th, 1780. The original subscription list is now 
in my possession — it amounts to four hundred pounds hard money, 
and one hundred and one thousand three hundred and sixty pounds 
continental. 

"While this subscription was going forward, information of the 
loss of Charleston arrived,! ana " on a communication from several 
members of congress to certain gentlemen of this city, of the in- 
creasing distresses and dangers then taking place, a meeting was 
held of the subscribers, and such other gentlemen who chose to 
attend, at the city tavern. This meeting was on the 17th of June, 
nine days after the subscriptions had began. 

At this meeting it was resolved to open a security-subscription, 
to the amount of three hundred thousand pounds, Pennsylvania 
currency, in real money ; the subscribers to execute bonds to the 
amount of their subscriptions, and to form a bank thereon for 
supplying the army. This being resolved on and carried into 
execution, the plan of the first subscriptions was discontinued, and 
this extended one established in its stead. 

* Mr. M'Clenaghan being now returned from Europe, has my consent to 
show this letter to any gentleman who may be inclined to see it. 

t Colonel Tennant, aid to general Lincoln, arrived the 14th of June, with 
despatches of the capitulation of Charleston. 



DISSERTATIONS ON GOVERNMENT, &C. 38*3 

By means of this bank the army was supplied through the cam- 
paign, and being at the same time recruited, was enabled to main- 
tain its ground ; and on the appointment of Mr Morris to be 
superintendent of the finances the spring following, he arranged 
the system of the present bank, styled the bank of North America, 
and many of the subscribers of the former bank transferred their 
subscriptions into this. 

Towards the establishment of this bank, congress passed an 
ordinance of incorporation December 21st, 1781, which the go- 
vernment of Pennsylvania recognized by sundry matters : and 
afterwards, on an application from the president and directors of 
the bank, through the mediation of the executive council, the as- 
sembly agreed to, and passed the state act of incorporation April 
1st, 1782. 

Thus arose the bank — produced by the distresses of the times 
and the enterprising spirit of patriotic individuals. — Those indivi- 
duals furnished and risked the money, and the aid which the go- 
vernment contributed was that of incorporating them. — It would 
have been well if the state had made all its bargains and contracts 
with as much true policy as it made this : for a greater service for 
so small a consideration, that only of an act of incorporation, has 
not been obtained since the government existed. 

Having now shown how the bank originated, I shall proceed 
with my remarks. 

The sudden restoration of public and private credit, which took 
place on the ostablishment of the bank, is an event as extraordinary 
in itself as <my domestic occurrence during the progress of the 
revolution. 

How far w spirit of envy might operate to produce the attack on 
the bank during the sitting of the late assembly, is best known 
and felt by those who began or promoted that attack. The bank 
had rendered services which the assembly of 1780 could not, and 
acquired an honor which many of its members might be unwilling 
to own, and wish to obscure. 

But surely every government, acting on the principles of pa- 
triotism and public good, would cherish an institution capable of 
rendering such advantages to the community. The establishment 
of the bank in one of the most trying vicissitudes of the war, its 
zealous services in the public cause, its influence in restoring and 
supporting credit, and the punctuality with which all its business 



384 DISSERTATIONS ON GOVERNMENT, &C 

tas been transacted, are matters, that so far from meriting the 
treatment it met with from the late assembly, are an honor to the 
state, and what the body of her citizens may be proud to own. 

But the attack on the bank, as a chartered institution, under the 
protection of its violators, however criminal it may be as an error 
of government, or impolitic as a measure of party, is not to be 
charged on the constituents of those who made the attack. It 
appears from every circumstance that has come to light, to be a 
measure which that assembly contrived of itself. The members 
did not come charged with the affair from their constituents. 
There was no idea of such a thing when they were elected or 
when they met. The hasty and precipitate manner in which it 
\v r as hurried through the house, and the refusal of the house to 
hear the directors of the bank in its defence, prior to the publica 
tion of the repealing bill for public consideration, operated to 
prevent their constituents comprehending the subject : therefore, 
whatever may be wrong in the proceedings lies not at the door of 
the public. The house took the affair on its own shoulders, and 
whatever blame there is, lies on them. 

The matter must have been prejudged and predetermined by a 
majority of the members out of the house, before it was brought 
into it. The whole business appears to have been fixed at once, 
and all reasoning or debate on the case rendered useless. 

Petitions from a very inconsiderable number of persons, sud- 
denly procured, and so privately done, as to be a secret among 
the few that signed them, were presented to the house and read 
twice in one day, and referred to a committee of the house to in- 
quire and report thereon. I here subjoin the petition* and the 

* Minutes of the assembly, March 21, 1785. Petitions from a considerable 
number of the inhabitants of Chester county were read, representing that the 
\>ank established at Philadelphia has fatal effects upon the community ; that 
whilst men are enabled, by means of the bank, to receive near three times the 
rate of common interest, and at the same time receive their money at very 
short warning, whenever they have occasion for it, it will be impossible for 
the husbandman or mechanic to borrow on the former terms of legal interest 
and distant payments of the principal; that the best security will not enable 
the person to borrow : that experience clearly demonstrates the mischievous 
consequences of this institution to the fair trader ; that impostors have been 
tnabled to support themselves in a fictitious credit, by means of a temporary 
punctuality at the bank, until they have drawn in their honest neighbours to 
trust them with their property, or to pledge their credit as sureties, and have 
been finally involved in ruin and distress ; that they have repeatedly seen 
the stopping of discounts at the bank operate on the trading part of the com- 
munity, with a degree of violence scarcely inferior to that of a stagnation of 
the blood in the human body, hurrying the wretched merchant who hath 
debts to pay into tho hands of griping usurers : that the directors of the bank 



DISSERTATIONS ON GOVERNMENT. 385 

report, and shall exercise the right and privilege of a citizen in 
examining their merits, not for the purpose of opposition, but with a 
design of making an intricate affair more generally and better 
understood. 

may give such preference in trade, by advances of money, to their particular 
favorites, as to destroy that equality which ought to prevail in a commercial 
country ; that paper money has often proved beneficial to the state, but the 
bank forbids it, and the people must acquiesce : therefore, and in order to 
restore public confidence and private security, they pray that a bill may be 
brought in and passed into a law for repealing the law for incorporating the 
bank. 

March 28. The report of the committee, read March 25, on the petitions 
from the counties of Chester and Berks, and the city of Philadelphia and its 
vicinity, praying the act of the assembly, whereby the bank was established at 
Philadelphia, may be repealed, was read the second time as follows — viz. 

The committee to whom was referred the petitions concerning the bank 
established at Philadelphia, and who were instructed to inquire whether the 
said bank be compatible with the public safety, and that equality which ought 
ever to prevail between the individuals of a republic, beg leave to report, that 
it is the opinion of this committee that the said bank, as at present establish- 
ed, is in every view incompatible with the public safety — that in the present 
state of our trade, the said bank has a direct tendency to banish a great 
part of the specie from the country, so as to produce a scarcity of money, 
and to collect into the hands of the stockholders of the said bank, almost 
the whole of the money which remains amongst us. That the accumulation 
of enormous wealth in the hands of a society, who claim perpetual duration, 
will necessarily produce a degree of influence and power, which cannot be 
intrusted in the hands of any set of men whatsoever, without endangering 
the public safety. That the said bank, in its corporate capacity, is empower- 
ed to hold estates to the amount often millions of dollars, and by the tenor of 
the present charter, is to exist for ever, without being obliged to yield any 
emolument to the government, or to be at all dependant upon it. That the 
great profits of the bank which will daily increase as money grows scarcer, 
and which already far exceed the profits of European banks, have tempted 
foreigners to vest their money in this bank, and thus to draw from us large 
sums for interest. 

That foreigners will doubtless be more and more induced to become stock- 
holders, until the time may arrive when this enormous engine of power may 
become subject to foreign influence ; this country may be agitated with the 
politics of European courts, and the good people of America reduced once 
more into a state of subordination, and dependance upon some one or other 
of the European powers. That at best, if it were even confined to the hands 
of Americans, it would be totally destructive of that equality which ought to 
prevail in a republic. We have nothing in our free and equal government 
capable of balancing the influence which this bank must create — and we see 
nothing, which in the course of a few years, can prevent the directors of the 
bank from governing Pennsylvania. Already we have felt its influence indi- 
rectly interfering in the measures of the legislature. Already the house of 
assembly, the representatives of the people, have been threatened, that the 
credit of our paper currency will be blasted by the bank; and if this growing 
evil continues, we fear the time is not very distant, when the bank will bg 
able to dictate to the legislature, what laws to pass and what to forbear. 

Your committee therefore beg leave further to report the following resolu- 
tion to be adopted by the house — viz. 

Resolved, that a committee be appointed to bring in a bill to repeal the act 
of assembly passed the 1st day of April, 1782, entitled, " An act to incorpo- 
rate the subscribers to the bank of Norths America:" and also to repeal 
one other act of assembly, passed the 18th of March, 1782, entitled, "An act 
for preventing and punishing the counterfeiting of the common seal, bank 
bills and bank notes of the president, directors and company, of the bank of 
North- America, and for the other purposes therein mentioned.'* 

vol. I. 49 



3S6 DISSERTATIONS ON GOVERNMENT. 

So far as my private judgment is capable of comprehending 
the subject, it appears to me, that the committee were unac 
quainted with, and have totally mistaken, the nature and business 
of a bank, as well as the matter committed to them, considered 
as a proceeding of government. 

They were instructed by the house to inquire whether the 
bank established at Philadelphia was compatible with the public 
safety. 

It is scarcely possible to suppose the instructions meant no 
more than that they were to inquire of one another. It is cer- 
tain they made no inquiry at the bank, to inform themselves of 
the situation of its affairs, how they were conducted, what aids 
it had rendered the public cause, or whether any ? nor do the 
committee produce in their report a single fact or circumstance 
to show that they made any inquiry at all, or whether the rumors 
then circulated were true or false ; but content themselves with 
modelling the insinuations of the petitions into a report and giving 
an opinion thereon. 

It would appear from the report, that the committee either 
conceived that the house had already determined how it would 
act without regard to the- case, and that they were only a com- 
mittee for form sake, and to give a color of inquiry without 
making any, or that the case was referred to them, as J air- 
questions are sometimes referred to lau'-ojfficers, for an opinion 
only. 

This method of doing public business serves exceedingly to 
mislead a country. — When the constituents of an assembly heat 
that an inquiry into any matter is directed to be made, and a com- 
mittee appointed for that purpose, they naturally conclude that 
the inquiry if made, and that the future proceedings of the house 
are in consequence of the matters, facts, and information ob- 
tained by means of that inquiry. — But here is a committee of 
inquiry making no inquiry at all, and giving an opinion on a ease 
without inquiring into the merits of it. This proceeding of the 
committee would justify an opinion that it was not their wish to 
ge/, but to get over information, and lest the inquiry should not 
suit their wishes, omitted to make any. The subsequent con- 
duct of the house, in resolving not to hear the directors of the 
bank, on their application for that purpose, prior to the publica- 
tion of the bill for the consideration of the people, strongly cor- 



DISSERTATIONS ON GOVERNMENT, &C 337 

rob orates this opinion : for why should not the house hear them, 
unless it was apprehensive that the bank, by such a public op- 
portunity, would produce proofs of its services and usefulness, 
that would not suit the temper and views of its oppressors'? 

But if the house did not wish or choose to hear the defence 
of the bank, it was no reason that their constituents should not. 
The constitution of this state, in lieu of having two branches of 
legislature, has substituted, that, " to the end that laws before 
they are enacted may be more maturely considered, and the in- 
convenience of hasty determinations as much as possible pre- 
vented, all bills of a public nature shall be printed for the consi- 
deration of the people."* The people, therefore, according to 
the constitution, stand in the place of another house ; or, more 
properly speaking, are a house in their own right. But in this 
Instance, the assembly arrogates the whole power to itself, and 
places itself as a bar to stop the necessary information spreading 
among the people. The application of the bank to be heard be- 
fore the bill was published for public consideration had two ob- 
jects. First, to the house, — and secondly, through the house to 
the people, who are as another house. It was as a defence in 
the first instance, and as an appeal in the second. But the as- 
sembly absorbs the right of the people to judge ; because, by 
refusing to hear the defence, they barred the appeal. Were there 
no other cause which the constituents of that assembly had for 
censuring its conduct, than the exceeding unfairness, partiality, 
and arbitrariness with which this business was transacted, it would 
be cause sufficient. 

Let the constituents of assemblies differ, as they may, respect- 
ing certain peculiarities in the form of the constitution, they will 
all agree in supporting its principles, and in reprobating unfair 
proceedings and despotic measures. — Every constituent is a mem- 
ber of the republic, which is a station of more consequence to 
him than being a member of a party, and though they may differ 
from each other in their choice of persons to transact the public 
business, it is of equal importance to all parties that the business 
be done on right principles ; otherwise our laws and acts, instead 
of being founded in justice, will be founded in party, and be laws 
and acts of retaliation; and instead of being a republic, of free 

* Constitution, sect. 15th. 



388 DISSERTATIONS ON GOVERNMENT, &C. 

citizens, we shall be alternately tyrants and slaves. But to return 
to the report. 

The report begins by stating that, " The committee to whom 
was referred the petitions concerning the bank established at 
Philadelphia, and who were instructed to inquire whether the said 
bank be compatible with the public safety, and that equality which 
ought ever to prevail between the individuals of a republic, beg 
leave to report" (not that they have made any inquiry, but) " that 
it is the opinion of this committee, that the said bank, as at pre- 
sent established, is, in every view, incompatible with the public 
safety." But why is it so? Here is an opinion unfounded 
and unwarranted. The committee have begun their report at 
the wrong end ; for an opinion, when given as a matter of judg- 
ment, is an action of the mind which follows a fact, but here 
it is put in the room of one. 

The report then says, u that in the present state of our trade, 
the said bank has a direct tendency to banish a great part of the 
specie from the country, and to collect into the hands of the stock- 
holders of the bank, almost the whole of the money which remains 
among us." 

Here is another mere assertion, just like the former, without 
a single fact or circumstance to show why it is made, or whereon 
it is founded. Now the very reverse of what the committee 
asserts is the natural consequence of a bank. Specie may be 
called the stock in trade of the bank, it is therefore its int. 
to prevent it from wandering out of the country, and to keep a 
constant standing supply to be ready for all domestic occasions 
and demands. Were it true that the bank has a direct tendency 
to banish tbe specie from the country, there would soon be an end 
to the bank ; and, therefore, the committee have so far mistaken 
the matter, as to put their fears in the place of their wishes: fur 
if it is to happen as the committee states, let the bank alone and 
it will cease of itself, and the repealing act need not have been 
passed. 

It is the interest of the bank that people should keep their cash 
there, and all commercial countries find the exceeding great con 
venience of having a general depository for their cash. But so 
far from banishing it, there are no two classes of people in Ame- 
rica who are so much interested in preserving hard money in the 
country as the bank and the merchant. Neither of them cai 



DISSERTATIONS ON GOVERNMENT, &C. 389 

carry on their business without it. Their opposition to the paper 
money of the late assembly was because it has a direct effect, as 
far as it is able, to banish the specie, and that without providing 
any means for bringing more in. 

The committee must have been aware of this, and therefore 
chose to spread the first alarm, and, groundless as it was, to trust 
to the delusion. 

As the keeping the specie in the country is the interest of the 
bank, so it has the best opportunities of preventing its being 
sent away, and the earliest knowledge of such a design. While 
the bank is the general depository of cash, no great sums can be 
obtained without getting it from thence, and as it is evidently pre- 
judicial to its interest to advance money to be sent abroad, be- 
cause in this case, the money cannot by circulation return again ; 
the bank, therefore, is interested in preventing what the com- 
mittee would have it suspected of promoting. 

It is to prevent the exportation of cash, and to retain it in the 
country, that the bank has, on several occasions, stopped the dis- 
counting notes till the danger has been passed.* The first part, 
therefore, of the assertion, that of banishing the specie, contains 

* The petitions say, " That they have frequently seen the stopping- of dis- 
counts at the bank operate on the trading part of the community, with a de- 
gree of violence scarcely inferior to that of a stagnation of the blood in the 
human body, hurrying the wretched merchant who hath debts to pay into 
the hands of griping usurers." 

As the persons who say or signed this, live somewhere in Chester county, 
they are not, from situation, certain of what they say. Those petitions have 
every appearance of being contrived for the purpose of bringing the matter 
on. The petitions and the report have strong evidence in them of being both 
drawn up by the same person : for the report is as clearly the echo of the 
petitions as ever the address of the British parliament was the echo of the 
king's speech. 

Besides the reason I have already given for occasionally stopping discount- 
ing notes at the bank, there are other necessary reasons. It is for the pur- 
pose of settling accounts: short reckonings make long friends. The bank 
lends its money for short, periods, and by that means assists a great many dif- 
ferent people : and if it did not sometimes stop discounting as a means of set- 
tling with the persons it has already lent its money to, those persons would 
find a way to keep what they had borrowed longer than they ought, and 
prevent others being assisted. It is a fact, and some of the committee know 
it to be so, that sundry of those persons who then opposed the bank acted 
this part. 

The stopping the discounts do not, and cannot, operate to call in the loans 
sooner than the time for which they were lent, and therefore the charge is 
false that " it hurries men into the hands of griping usurers:" and the truth 
is, that it operates to keep them from them. 

If petitions are to be contrived to cover the design of a house of assembly, 
and give a pretence for its conduct, or if a house is to be led by the nose by 
the idle tale of any fifty or sixty signers to a petition, it is time for the pub- 
lic to look a little closer into the conduct of its representatives. 



390 DISSERTATIONS ON GOVERNMENT, &C. 

an apprehension as needless as it is groundless, and which, had 
the committee understood, or been the least informed of the na- 
ture of a bank, they could not have made. It is very probable 
that some of the opposers of the bank are those persons who have 
been disappointed in their attempts to obtain specie for this pur- 
pose, and now disguise their opposition under other pretences. 

I now come to the second part of the assertion, which is, that 
when the bank has banished a great part of the specie from the 
country, " it will collect into the hands of the stockholders almost 
the whole of the money which remains among us." But how, 
or by what means, the bank is to accomplish this wonderful feat, 
the committee have not informed us. ^Vhether people are to 
give their money to the bank for nothing, or whether the bank is 
to charm it from them as a rattlesnake charms a squirrel from a 
tree, the committee have left us as much in the dark about as 
they were themselves. 

Is it possible the committee should know so very little of the 
matter, as not to know that no part of the money which at any 
time may be in the bank belongs to the stockholders ? not even 
the original capital which they put in is any part of it their own, 
until every person who has a demand upon the bank is paid, and 
if there is not a sufficiency for this purpose, on the balance of 
loss and gain, the original money of the stockholders must make 
up the deficiency. 

The money, which at any time may be in the bank, is the pro- 
perty of every man who holds a bank note, or cleposites cash 
there, or who has a just demand upon it from the city of Phila- 
delphia up to fort Pitt, or to any part of the United States ; and 
he can draw the money from it when he pleases. Its being in 
the bank, does not in the least make it the property of the stock- 
holders, any more than the money in the state treasury is the 
property of the state treasurer. They are only stewards over it 
for those who please to put it, or let it remain there : and, there- 
fore, this second part of the assertion is somewhat ridiculous. 

The next paragraph in the report is, " that the accumulation 
of enormous wealth in the hands of a society who claim perpetual 
duration, will necessarily produce a degree of influence and 
power which cannot be entrusted in the hands of any set of men 
whatsoever" (the committee I presume excepted) " without en- 
dangering the public safety." There, is an air of solemn fear in 




DISSERTATIONS OK GOVERNMENT, &C. 391 

this paragraph which is something like introducing a ghost in a 
play to keep people from laughing at the players. 

I have already shown that whatever wealth there may be, at 
any time, in the bank, is the property of those who have demands 
upon the bank, and not the property of the stockholders. As a 
society they hold no property, and most probably never will, 
unless it should be a house to transact their business in, instead 
of hiring one. Every half year the bank settles its accounts, 
and each individual stockholder takes his dividend of gain or loss 
to himself, and the bank begins the next half year in the same 
manner it began the first, and so on. This being the nature of 
a bank, there can be no accumulation of wealth among them as 
a society. 

For what purpose the word " society" is introduced into the 
report I do not know, unless it be to make a false impression 
upon people's minds. It has no connexion with the subject, for 
the bank is not a society, but a company, and denominated so in 
the charter. There are several religious societies incorporated 
in this state, which hold property as the right of those societies, 
and to which no person can belong that is not of the same reli- 
gious profession. But this is not the case with the bank. The 
bank is a company for the promotion and convenience of com- 
merce, which is a matter in which all the state is interested, and 
holds no property in the manner which those societies do. 

But there is a direct contradiction in this paragraph to that 
which goes before it. The committee, there, accuses the bank 
of banishing the specie, and here, of accumulating enormous 
sums of it. So here are two enormous sums of specie ; one 
enormous sum going out, and another enormous sum remaining. 
To reconcile this contradiction, the committee should have added 
to their report, that they suspected the bank had found out the 
philosopher's stone, and kept it a secret. 

The next paragraph is, " that the said bank, in its corporate 
capacity, is empowered to hold estates to the amount of ten mil- 
lions of dollars, and by the tenor of the present charter is to exist 
for ever, without being obliged to yield any emolument to the 
government, or be in the least dependant on it." 

The committee have gone so vehemently into this business, 
and so completely shown their want of knowledge in every point 
of it, as to make, in th« first part of this paragraph, a fear of 



DISSERTATIONS ON GOVERNMENT, &C. 

what, f he greater fear is, will never happen. Had the committee 
known any thing of banking, they must have known, that the 
objection against banks has been (not that they held great estates, 
but) that they held none ; that they had no real, fixed, and visible 
property, and that it is the maxim and practice of banks not to 
hold any. 

The honorable chancellor Livingston, late secretary for foreign 
affairs, did me the honor of showing, and discoursing with me 
on a plan of a bank he had drawn up for the state of New-York. 
In this plan it was made a condition or obligation, that whatever 
the capital of the bank amounted to in specie, there should be 
added twice as much in real estates. But the mercantile interest 
rejected the proposition. 

It was a very good piece of policy in the assembly which 
passed the charter act, to add the clause to empower the bank to 
purchase and hold real estates. It was as an inducement to the 
bank to do it, because such estates being held as the property of 
the bank would be so many mortgages to the public in addition 
to the money capital of the bank. 

But the doubt is that the bank will not be induced to accept 
the opportunity. The bank has existed five years, and has not 
purchased a shilling of real property : and as such property or 
estates cannot be purchased by the bank but with the interest 
money which the stock produces, and as that is divided every 
half year among the stockholders, and each stockholder chooses 
to have the management of his own dividend, and if he lays it 
out in purchasing an estate to have that estate his own private 
property, and under his own immediate management, there is 
no expectation, so far from being any fear, that the clause will be 
accepted. 

Where knowledge is a duty, ignorance is a crime ; and the 
committee are criminal in not understanding this subject better 
Had this clause not been in the charter, the committee might 
have reported the want of it as a defect, in not empowering the 
bank to hold estates as a real security to its creditors : but as 
the complaint now stands, the accusation of it is, that the charter 
empowers the bank to give real security to its creditors. A com 
plaint never made, heard of, or thought of before. 

The second article in this paragraph is, " that the bank, accord- 
ing to the tenor of the present charter, is to exist for ever." 



DISSERTATIONS ON GOVERNMENT, &£. 393 

Here I agree with the committee, and am glad to find that among 
such a list of errors and contradictions there is one idea whicji 
is not wrong, although the committee have made a wrong use 
of iU 

As we are not to live for ever ourselves, and other genera- 
tions are to follow us, we have neither the power nor the right 
to govern them, or to say how they shall govern themselves. 
It is the summit of human vanity, and shows a covetousness of 
power beyond the grave, to be dictating to the world to come, 
It is sufficient that we do that which is right in our own day, and 
leave them with the advantage of good examples. 

As the generations of the worl,d are every day both come- 
niencing and expiring, therefore, when any public act, of this 
sort, is done, it naturally supposes the age of that generation to 
be then beginning, and the time contained between coming of 
age, and the natural end of life, is the extent of time it has a 
right to go to, which may be about thirty years ; for though 
many may die before, others will live beyond ; and the mea^ 
time is equally fair for all generations, 

If it was made an article in the constitution, that all laws anp 
acts should cease of themselves in thirty years, and have no 
legal force beyond that time, it would prevent their becoming 
too numerous and voluminous, and serve to keep them within 
view in a compact compass. Such as were proper to be con- 
tinued, would be enacted again, and those which were not, wouhi 
go into oblivion. There is the same propriety that a nation 
should fix a time for a full settlement of its affairs, and begin 
again from a new date, as jLhat an individual should ; and tp 
keep within the distance of thirty years would be a convenient 
period. 

The British, from the want of some general regulation of this 
kind, have a great number of obsolete laws ; which, though out 
of use and forgotten, are not out of force, and are occasionally 
brought up for particular purposes, and innocent, unwary persons 
trepanned thereby. 

To extend this idea still further,— it would probably be a con- 
siderable improvement in the political system of nations, to make 
all treaties of peace for a limited time,. It is the nature of the 
mind to feel uneasy un<Jer the idea of a condition perpetualjy 
vol. i. 50 



394 DISSERTATIONS ON GOVERNMENT, &C. 

existing over it, and to excite in itself apprehensions that woufd 
not take place were it not from that cause. 

Were treaties of peace made for, and renewable every seven 
or ten years, the natural effect would be, to make peace con- 
tinue longer than it does under the custom of making peace for 
ever. If the parties felt, or apprehended, any inconveniences 
under the terms already made, they would look forward to the 
time when they should be eventually relieved therefrom, and 
might renew the treaty on improved conditions. This opportu- 
nity periodically occurring, and the recollection of it always exist- 
ing, would serve as a chimney to the political fabric, to carry off 
the smoke and fume of national fire. It would naturally abate, 
and honorably take off the edge and occasion for fighting : and 
however the parties might determine to do it, when the time of 
the treaty should expire, it would then seem like fighting in cool 
blood : the fighting temper would be dissipated before the fighting 
time arrived, and negotiation supply its place. To know how 
probable this may be, a man need do no more than observe the 
progress of his own mind on any private circumstance similar in 
its nature to a public one. But to return to my subject. 

To give limitation is to give duration : and though it is not a 
justifying reason, that because an act or contract is not to last 
for ever, that it shall be broken or violated to-day, yet, where 
no time is mentioned, the omission affords an opportunity for 
the abuse. When we violate a contract on this pretence, we 
assume a right that belongs to Che next generation ; for though 
they, as a following generation, have the right of altering or setting 
it aside, as not being concerned in the making it, or not being 
done in their day, we, who made it, have not that right ; and, 
therefore, the committee, in this part of their report, have made 
a wrong use of a right principle ; and as this clause in the charter 
might have been altered by the consent of the parties, it cannot 
be produced to justify the violation. And were it not altered 
there would be no inconvenience from it. The term M for ever" 
is an absurdity that would have no effect. The next age will 
think for itself, by the same rule of right that wo have done, and 
not admit any assumed authority of ours to encroach upon the 
system of their day. Our for ever ends, where their for ever 
begins. 



DISSERTATIONS ON GOVERNMENT, &C. 395 

The third article in this paragraph is, that the bank holds its 
charter " without being obliged to yield any emolument to the 
government." 

Ingratitude has a short memory. It was on the failure of the 
government to support the public cause, that the bank originated. 
It stepped in as a support, when some of the persons then in the 
government, and who now oppose the bank, were apparently on 
the point of abandoning the cause, not from disaffection, but 
from despair. While the expenses of the war were carried on 
by emissions of continental money, any set of men, in govern- 
ment, might carry it on. The means being provided to their 
hands, required no great exertions of fortitude or wisdom ; but 
when this means failed, they would have failed with it, had not 
a public spirit awakened itself with energy out of doors. It was 
easy times to the governments while continental money lasted. 
The dream of wealth supplied the reality of it ; but when the 
dream vanished, the government did not awake. 

But what right has the government to expect any emolument 
from the bank ? Doe^ the committee mean to set up acts and 
charters for sale, or what do they mean ? Because it is the 
practice of the British ministry to grind a toll out of every public 
institution they can get a power over, is the same practice to 
be followed here? 

The war being now ended, and the bank having rendered the 
service expected, or rather hoped for, from it, the principal 
public use of it, at this time, is for the promotion and extension 
of commerce. The whole community derives benefit from the 
operation of the bank. It facilitates the commerce of the coun- 
try. It quickens the means of purchasing and paying for country 
produce, and hastens on the exportation of it.* The emolument, 
therefore, being to the community, it is the office and duty of 
government to give protection to the bank. 

Among many of the principal conveniences arising from the 
bank, one of them is, that it gives a kind of life to, what would 
otherwise be, dead money. Every merchant and person in trade, 
has always in his hands some quantity of cash, which constantly 
remains with him ; that is, he is never entirely without : this 
remnant money, as it may be called, is of no use to him till 
more is collected to it. — He can neither buy produce nor mer- 
chandize with it, and this being the case with every person in 



396 DISSERTATIONS ON GOVERNMENT, &C. 

trade, there will be (though not all at the same time) as many ot 
those sums lying uselessly by, and scattered throughout the 
city, as there are persons in trade* besides many that are not in 
trade. 

I should not suppose the estimate overrated, in conjecturing* 
that half the money in the city, at any one time, lies in this 
manner. By collecting those scattered sums together, which is 
done by means of the bank, they become capable of being used, 
and the quantity of circulating cash is doubled, and by the depo 
sitors alternately lending them to each other, the commercial 
system is invigorated : and as it is the interest of the bank to 
preserve this money in the country for domestic uses only, and 
as it has the best opportunity of doing so, the bank serves as a 
sentinel over the specie. 

If a farmer, or a miller, comes to the city with produce, there 
are but few merchants that can individually purchase it with ready 
money of their own ; and those few would command nearly the 
Whole market for country produce : but, by means of the bank, 
this monopoly is prevented, and the chance of the market en- 
larged. It is very extraordinary that the late assembly should 
promote monopolizing ; yet such would be the effect of sup- 
pressing the bank ; and it is much to the honor of those mer- 
chants, who are capable, by their fortunes, of becoming mono- 
polizers, that they support the bank. In this case, honor ope- 
rates over interest. They were the persons who first set up the 
bank, and their honor is now engaged to support what it is their 
interest to put down. 

If merchants, by this means, or farmers, by similar means, 
among themselves, can mutually aid artd support each other, what 
has the government to do with it ? What right has it to expect 
emolument from associated industry, more than from individual 
industry? It would be a strange sort of government, that should 
make it illegal for people to assist each other, or pay a tribute for 
doing so. 

But the truth is, that the government has already derived emo 
luments, artd very extraordinary ones. It has already received 
its full share, by the services of the bank during the war : and 
it is every day receiving benefits, because whatever promotes 
and facilitates commerce, serves likewise to promote and facili* 
tate the revenue. 






DISSERTATIONS ON GOVERNMENT, &C, 39? 

The last article in this paragraph is, " that the bank is not the 
feast dependant on the government." 

Hate the committee so soon forgotten the principles of re- 
publican government, and the constitution, or are they so little 
Acquainted with them, as not to know, that this article in their 
report partakes of the nature of treason 1 Do they not know, 
that freedom is destroyed by dependance, and the safety of the 
state endangered thereby 1 Do the^ not see, that to hold any 
part of the citizens of the state, as yearlv uensioners on the 
favor of an assembly, is striking at the root of free elections ? 

If other parts of their report discover a want of knowledge 
on the subject of banks,* this shows a want of principle in the 
science of government. 

Only let us suppose this dangerous idea carried into practice, 
and then see what it leads to< If corporate bodies are, after 
their incorporation, to be annually dependant on an assembly for 
the continuance of their charter, the citizens which compose 
those corporations, are riot free. The government holds an 
authority and influence over them,- in a manner different from 
what it does over other citizens, and by this means destroys that 
equality of freedom, which is the bulwark of the republic and 
the constitution. 

By this scheme of government any party, which happens to 
be uppermost in a state, will command all the cofporations in it, 
and may create more for the purpose of extending that influence. 
The dependant borough towns in England are the rotten parts 
of their government, and this idea of the committee has a very 
near relation to it. 

*• If you do not do so and so," expressing what was meant, 
'• take care of your charter," was a threat thrown out against 
the bank. But as I do not wish to enlarge on a disagreeable* 
circumstance, and hope that what is already said is sufficient 
to show the anti-constitutional conduct and principles of the 
committee, I shall pass on to the next paragrapn in the report— - 
Which is — 

u That the great profits of the bank, which will daily increase 

fc money grows scarcer, and which already far exceeds the 

profits of European banks, have tempted foreigners to vest their 

money in this bank } and thus to draw from us large sums tor 

iaterest" 



393 DISSERTATIONS ON GOVERNMENT, &C. 

Had the committee understood the subject, some dependanc* 
might be put on their opinion which now cannot. Whether 
money will grow scarcer, and whether the profits of the bank will 
increase, are more than the committee know, or are judges suf- 
ficient to guess at. The committee are not so capable of taking 
care of commerce, as commerce is capable of taking care of 
itself. The farmer understands farming, and the merchant under- 
stands commerce ; and as riches are equally the object of both, 
there is no occasion that either should fear that the other will 
seek to be poor. The more money the merchant has, so much 
the better for the farmer who has produce to sell ; and the richer 
the farmer is, so much the better for the merchant, when he comes 
to his store. 

As to the profits of the bank, the stockholders must take their 
chance for it. It may some years be more and others less, and 
upon the whole may not be so productive as many other ways 
that money may be employed. It is the convenience which the 
stockholders, as commercial men, derive from the establishment 
of the bank, and not the mere interest they receive, that is the 
inducement to them. It is the ready opportunity of borrowing 
alternately of each other that forms the principal object : and as 
they pay as well as receive a great part of the interest among 
themselves, it is nearly the same thing, both cases considered 
at once, whether it is more or less. 

The stockholders are occasionally depositors and sometimes 
borrowers of the bank. They pay interest for what they borrow, 
and receive none for what they deposit ; and were a stockholder 
to keep a nice account of the interest he pays for the one and 
loses on the other, he would find, at the year's end, that ten per 
cent, on his stock would probably not be more than common in- 
terest on the whole, if so much. 

As to the committee complaining u that foreigners by vesting 
their money in the bank will draw large sums from us for inte- 
rest," it is like a miller complaining in a dry season, that so 
much water runs into his dam some of it runs over. 

Could those foreigners draw this interest without putting in 
any capital, the complaint would be well founded ; but as they 
must first put money in before they can draw any out, and as 
they must draw many years before they can draw even the nume- 
rical sum they put in at first, the effect for at least twenty years 



DISSERTATIONS ON GOVERNMENT, &C. 399 

to come, will be directly contrary to what the committee states ; 
because we draw capitals from them and they only interest from 
us, and as we shall have the use of the money all the while it 
remains with us, the advantage will always be in our favor.^-In 
framing this part of the- report, the committee must have for- 
gotten which side of the Atlantic they were on, for the case 
would be as they state it if We put money into their bank instead 
of their putting it into ours. 

I have now gone through, line by line, every objection against 
the bank, contained in the first half of the report ; what follows 
may be called, The lamentations of the committee, and a lament- 
able, pusillanimous, degrading thing it is. — It is a public affront, 
a reflection upon the sense and spirit of the whole country. I 
shall give the remainder together, as it stands in the report, and 
then my remarks. 

The lamentations are, " That foreigners will doubtless be 
more and more induced to become stockholders, until the time 
may arrive when this enormous engine of power may become 
Subject to foreign influence, this country may be agitated by the 
politics of European courts, and the good people of America 
reduced once more into a state of subordination and dependance 
upon some one or other of the European powers. That at best, 
if it were even confined to the hands of Americans, it would be 
totally destructive of that equality which ought to prevail in a re- 
public. We have nothing in our free ano! equal government 
capable of balancing the influence which this bank must create ; 
and we see nothing which in the course of a few years can pre- 
vent the directors of the bank from governing Pennsylvania. 
Already we have felt its influence indirectly interfering in the 
measures of the legislature. Already the house of assembly, 
the representatives of the people, have been threatened, that 
the credit of our paper currency will be blasted by the bank ; 
and if this growing evil continues, we fear the time is not very 
distant when the bank will be able to dictate to the legislature, 
what laws to pass, and what to forbear." 

When the sky falls we shall all be killed. There is something 
so ridiculously grave, so wide of probability, and so wild, con- 
fused and inconsistent in the whole composition of this long para- 
graph, that I am at a loss how to begin upon it. — It is like a 
drowning man crying fire ! fire ! 



400 DISSERTATIONS ON GOVERNMENT, &C 

This part of the report is made up of two dreadful predictions. 
The first is, that if foreigners purchase bank stock, we shall be 
all ruined : — the second is, that if the Americans keep the bank 
to themselves, we shall be also ruined. 

A committee of fortune-tellers is a novelty in government, and 
the gentlemen, by giving this specimen of their art, have inge- 
niously saved their honor on one point, which is, that though the 
people may say they are not bankers, nobody can say they are 
not conjurors. — There is, however, one consolation left, which 
is, that the committee do not know exactly how long it may be; 
so there is some hope that we may all be in heaven when this 
dreadful calamity happens upon earth. 

But to be serious, if any seriousness is necessary on so laugh- 
able a subject. — If the state should think there is any thing im- 
proper in foreigners purchasing bank stock, or any other kind of 
stock or funded property (for I see no reason why bank stock 
should be particularly pointed at) the legislature have authority 
to prohibit it. It is a mere political opinion that has nothing to 
do with the charter, or the charter with that ; and therefore the 
first dreadful prediction vanishes. 

It has always been a maxim in politics, founded on, and drawn 
from, natural causes and consequences, that the more foreign 
countries which any nation can interest in the prosperity of its 
own, so much the better. Where the treasure is, there wiil the 
heart be also ; and therefore when foreigners vest their money 
with us, they naturally invest their good wishes with it ; and it is 
we that obtain an influence over them, not they over us. — But the 
committee set out so very wrong at first, that the further they 
travelled, the more they were out of their way ; and now they 
have got to the end of their report, they are at the utmost distance 
from their business. 

As to the second dreadful part, that of tlie bank overturning 
the government, perhaps the committee meant that at the next 
general election themselves might be turned out of it, which has 
partly been the case ; not by the influence of the bank, for it had 
none, not even enough to obtain the permission of a hearing from 
government, but by the influence of reason and the choice of 
the people, who most probably resent the undue and unconstitu- 
tional influence which that house and committee were assuming 
over the privileges of citizeo»hip, 



DISSERTATIONS ON GOVERNMENT, &C. 401 

The committee might have been so modest as to have confined 
themselves to the bank, and not thrown a genera! odium on the 
whole country. Before the events can happen which the committee 
predict, the electors of Pennsylvania must become dupes, dunces 
and cowards, and, therefore, when the committee predict the do- 
minion of the bank they predict the disgrace of the people. 

The committee having finished their report, proceed to give 
their advice, which is, 

u That a committee be appointed to bring in a bill to repeal 
the act of assembly passed the first day of April, 1782, entitled, 
* An act to incorporate the subscribers to the bank of North-Ame- 
rica,' and also to repeal one other act of the assembly passed the 
18th of March, 1782, entitled, ' An act for preventing and punish- 
ing the counterfeiting of the common seal, bank-bills, and bank- 
notes of the president, directors and company of the bank of 
North- America, and for other purposes therein mentioned. ' " 

There is something in this sequel to the report that is per- 
plexed and obscure. 

Here are two acts to be repealed. One is, the incorporating 
act. The other, the act for preventing and punishing the 
counterfeiting of the common seal, bank bills, and bank notes 
of the president, directors and company of the bank of North- 
America. 

It would appear from the committee's manner of arranging 
them (were it not for the difference of their dates) that the act 
for punishing the counterfeiting the common seal, &c. of the bank, 
followed the act of incorporation, and that the common seal there 
referred to is a common seal which the bank held in consequence 
of the aforesaid incorporating act. — But the case is quite other- 
wise. The act for punishing the counterfeiting the common seal, 
&c. of the bank, was passed prior to the incorporating act, and 
refers to the common seal which the bank held in consequence of 
the charter of congress, and the style which the act expresses, 
of president, directors and company of the bank of North-Ame- 
rica, is the corporate style which the bank derives under the con- 
gress charter. 

The punishing act, therefore, hath two distinct legal points. 
The one is, an authoritative public recognition of the charter of 
congress. The second is, the punishment it inflicts on counter- 
feiting. 

vol. .i. 51 






402 DISSERTATIONS O.N GOVERNMENT, &C. 

The legislature may repeal the punishing part, but it cannot 
undo the recognition, because no repealing act can say that the 
state has not recognized. The recognition is a mere matter of 
fact, and no law or act can undo a fact, or put it, if I may so 
express it, in the condition it was before it existed. The repeal- 
ing act therefore does not reach the full point the committee had 
in view; for even admitting it to be a repeal of the state charter, 
it still leaves another charter recognized in its stead. — The 
charter of congress, standing merely on itself, would have a doubt- 
ful authority, but recognition of it by the state gives it legal 
ability. The repealing act, it is true, sets aside the punishment, 
but does not bar the operation of the charter of congress as a 
charter recognized by the state, and therefore the committee did 
their business but by ball 

I have now gone entirely through the report of the committee, 
and a more irrational, inconsistent, contradictory report will 
scarcely be found on the journals of any legislature in America. 

How the repealing ad is to be applied, or in what manner 

Lttei yet to be determined. For admitting a 
question of law to arise, whether the charter, which thai act at- 
tempts to repeal, 1SS law Of the land in the manner which laws 

of univers . <»r of the nature of a contract made 

between the public and tin- bank, as I have already explained in 
this work the repealing act does not and cannot decide the ques- 
tion, because it is tin- repealing act that makes the question, and 
its own fate ii involved in the decision. It is a question of law 
end not a question of legislation, and must be decided pn in a 

Court of justice and not by a boUSC Oi SSI emhly. 

lint the repealing act, by being passed prior to the decision 

of this point, SSSUmet the power of deciding it, and the assembly 

in so doing i n eta itself unconstitutionally into a tribunal of judi- 
cature, and absorbs the authority and right of the courts of 
justice into it-elf. 

Therefore the operation of the repealing act, in H Iset, 

requires injustice to be done For it is impossible on the prin- 
ciples of a republican government and the constitution, to pass 
an act to forbid any of the citizens the righl of appealing to the 
courts of justice on any matter in which his interest or property 
is affected; but the first operation of this act goes to shut up the 
courts cf justice, and holds them subservient to the assembly. 



DISSERTATIONS ON GOVERNMENT, &C. 403 

It either commands or influences them not to hear the case, or to 
give judgment on it on the mere will of one party only. 

I wish the citizens to awaken themselves on this subject. Not 
because the bank is concerned, but because their own constitu- 
tional rights and privileges are involved in the event. It is a 
question of exceeding great magnitude ; for if an assembly is to 
have this power, the laws of the land and the courts of justice 
are but of little use. 

Having now finished with the report, I proceed to the third 
and last subject — that of paper money. 

I remember a German farmer expressing as much in a few 
words as the whole subject requires : " money is money, and paper 
is paper." — All the invention of man cannot make them other- 
wise. The alchymist may cease his labours, and the hunter after 
the philosopher's stone go to rest, if paper can be metamorphosed 
into gold and silver, or made to answer the same purpose in 
all cases. 

Gold and silver are the emissions of nature : paper is the 
emission of art. The value of gold and silver is ascertained by 
the quantity which nature has made in the earth. We cannot 
make that quantity more or less than it is, and therefore the 
value being dependant upon the quantity, depends not on man. — 
Man has no share in making gold or silver; all that his labors 
and ingenuity can accomplish is, to collect it from the mine, refine 
it for use and give it an impression, or stamp it into coin. 

Its being stamped into coin adds considerably to its conveni- 
ence but nothing to its value. It has then no more value than 
it had before. Its value is not in the impression but in itself. 
Take away the impression and still the same value remains. 
Alter it as you will, or expose it to any misfortune that can happen, 
still the value is not diminished. It has a capacity to resist the 
accidents that destroy other things. It has, therefore, all the re- 
quisite qualities that money can have, and is a fit material to make 
money of; and nothing which has not all those, properties, can 
be fit for the purpose of money. 

Paper, considered as a material whereof to make money, has 
none of the requisite qualities in it. It is too plentiful, and too 
easily come at. It can be had any where, and for a trifle. 

There are two ways in which I shall consider paper. 



► 



404 DISSERTATIONS ON GOVERNMENT, &C. 

The only proper use for paper, in the room of money, is to 
write promissory notes and obligations of payment in specie 
upon. A piece of paper, thus written and signed, is worth the 
sum it is given for, if the person who gives it is able to pay it ; 
because in this case, the law will oblige him. But if he is worth 
nothing, the paper note is worth nothing. The value, therefore, 
of such a note, is not in the note itself, for that is but paper and 
promise, but in the man who is obliged to redeem it with gold or 
silver. 

Paper, circulating in this manner, and for this purpose, con- 
tinually points to the place and person where, and of whom, the 
money is to be had, and at last finds its home ; and, as it were, 
unlocks its master's chest and pays the bearer. 

But when an assembly undertake to issue paper as money, the 
whole system of safety and certainty is overturned, and property 
set afloat. Paper notes given and taken between individuals as 
a promise of payment is one Ihing, but paper issued by an as- 
sembly as money is another tiling. It is like putting an apparition 
in the place of a man ; it vanishes with looking at, and nothing 
remains but the air. 

Money, when considered as the fruit of many years industry, 
as the reward of labor, sweat and toil, as the widow's dowry and 
children's portion, and as the meant of procuring the necessaries 
and alleviating the affliction- of life, and making old age a scene 
of rest, has something in it lacred that is not to be sported with, 
or trusted to the airy b'lbble of paper currency. 

By what power or authority an assembly undertakes to make 
paper money, is difficult to say. It derives none from the consti- 
tution, for that is silent on the subject. It is one of those things 
whicsh the people have not delegated, and which, were they at 
any time assembled together, they would not delegate* It is, 
therefore, an assumption of power winch an assembly is not 
warranted in, and which may one day or other, be the means of 
bringing some of them to punishment. 

I shall enumerate some of the evils of paper money and con- 
clude with offering means for preventing them. 

One of the evils of paper money is, that it turns the whole 
country into stock jobbers. The precariousness of its value and 
the uncertainty of its fate continually operate, night and day, to 
produce this destructive effect Having no real value in itseK 



DISSERTATIONS ON GOVERNMENT, &C. 405 

it depends for support upon accident, caprice and party, and as 
it is the interest of some to depreciate and of others to raise 
its value, there is a continual invention going on that destroys 
the morals of the country. 

It was horrid to see, and hurtful to recollect, how loose the 
principles of justice were let, by means of the paper emissions 
during the war. The experience then had t should be a warning 
to any assembly how they venture to open such a dangerous door 
again. 

As to the romantic, if not hypocritical, tale, that a virtuous 
people need no gold and silver, and that paper will do as well, 
requires no other contradiction than the experience we have seen. 
Though some well meaning people may be inclined to view it in 
this light, it is certain that the sharper always talks this language. 

There are a set of men who go about making purchases upon 
credit, and buying estates they have not wherewithal to pay for; 
and having done this, their next step is to fill the newspapers 
with paragraphs of the scarcity of money and the necessity of 
a paper emission, then to have a legal tender under the pretence 
of supporting its credit, and when out, to depreciate it as fast 
as they can, get a deal of it for a little price and cheat their 
creditors'; and this is the concise history of paper money schemes. 

But why, since the universal custom of the world has estab- 
lished money as the most convenient medium of traffic and com- 
merce, should paper be set up in preference to gold and silver? 
The productions of nature are surely as innocent as those of art; 
and in the case of money, are abundantly, if not infinitely, more 
so. The love of gold and silver may produce covetousness, but 
covetousness, when not connected with dishonesty, is not pro- 
perly a vice. It is frugality run to an extreme. 

But the evils of paper money have no end. Its uncertain and 
fluctuating value is continually awakening or creating new schemes 
of deceit. Every principle of justice is put to the rack, and the 
bond of society dissolved : the suppression, therefore, of paper 
money might very properly have been put into the act for pre- 
venting vice and immorality. 

The pretence for paper money has been, that there was not a 
sufficiency of gold and silver. This, so far from being a reason 
"or paper emissions, is a reason against them. 



406 DISSERTATIONS ON GOVERNMENT, &C. 

As gold and silver are not the productions of North America, 
they are, therefore, articles of importation ; and if we set up a 
paper manufactory of money, it amounts, as far as it is able, lo 
prevent the importation of hard money, or to send it out again as 
fast as it comes in ; and by following this practice we shall con- 
tinually banish the specie, till we have none left, and be continu- 
ally complaining of the grievance instead of remedying the cause. 

Considering gold and silver as articles of importation, there 
will in time, unless we prevent it by paper emissions, be as much 
in the country as the occasions of it require, for the same reasons 
there are as much of other imported articles. But as every yard 
of cloth manufactured in the country occasions a yard the less 
to be imported, so it is by money, with this difference, that in the 
one case we manufacture the thing itself and in the other we do 
not. We have cloth for cloth, but we have only paper dollars for 
silver ones. 

As to the assumed authority of any assembly in making paper 
money, or paper of any kind, a legal tender, or in other language, 
a compulsive payment, it is a most presumptuous attempt at arbi- 
trary power. There can be no such power in a republican go- 
vernment : the people have no freedom, and property no security 
where this practice can be acted : and the committee who shall 
bring in a report for this purpose, or the member who moves for 
it, and he who seconds it merit impeachment, and sooner or later 
may expect it. 

Of all the various sorts of base coin, paper money is the 
basest. It has the least intrinsic value of any thing that can be 
put in the place of gold and silver. A hobnail or a piece of 
wampum far exceeds it. And there would be more propriety in 
making those articles a legal tender than to make paper so. 

It was the issuing base coin, and establishing it as a tender, 
that was one of the principal means of finally overthrowing the 
power of the Stuart family in Ireland. The article is worth re- 
citing as it bears such a resemblance to the progress practised on 
paper money. 

11 Brass and copper of the basest kind, old cannon, broken bells, 
household utensils were assiduously collected ; and from every 
pound weight of such vile materials, valued at four-pence, pieces 
were coined and circulated to the amount of five pounds nominal 
value. By the first proclamation they were made current in all 







DISSERTATIONS ON GOVERNMENT, &C. 407 

payments to and from the king and the subjects of the realm, ex- 
cept in duties on the importation of foreign goods, money left in 
trust, or due by mortgage, bills or bonds ; and James promised 
that when the money should be decried, he would receive it in all 
payments, or make full satisfaction in gold and silver. The nomi- 
nal value was afterwards raised by subsequent proclamations, the 
original restrictions removed, and this base money was ordered to 
be received in all kinds of payments. As brass and copper grew 
scarce, it was made of still viler materials, of tin and pewter, and 
old debts of one thousand pounds were discharged by pieces of 
vile metal, amounting to thirty shillings in intrinsic value."* Had 
king James thought of paper, he needed not to have been at the 
trouble or expense of collecting brass and copper, broken bells, 
and household utensils. 

The laws of a country ought to be the standard of equity, and 
calculated to impress on the minds of the people the moral as well 
as the legal obligations of reciprocal justice. But tender laws, of 
any kind, operate to destroy morality, and to dissolve, by the pre- 
tence'of law, what ought to be the principle of law to support/re- 
ciprocal justice between man and man : and the punishment of a 
member who should move for such a law ought to be death. 

When the recommendation of congress, in the year 1780, for 
repealing the tender laws was before the assembly of Pennsylva- 
nia, on casting up the votes, for and against bringing in a bill to 
repeal those laws, the numbers were equal, and the casting vote 
rested on the speaker, colonel Bayard. " I give my vote," said 
he, " for the repeal, from a consciousness of justice ; the tender 
laws operate to establish iniquity by law." But when the bill was 
brought in, the house rejected it, and the tender laws continued to 
be the means of fraud. 

If any thing had, or could have, a value equal to gold and silver, 
it would require no tender law : and if it had not that value it 
ought not to have such a law ; and, therefore, all tender laws are 
tyrannical and unjust, and calculated to support fraud and oppres- 
sion. 

Most of the advocates for tender laws are those who have debts 
to discharge, and who take refuge in such a law, to violate their 
contracts and cheat their creditors. But as no law can warrant 

♦ Iceland's History of Ireland, vol. iv. p. 265, 



408 DISSERTATIONS ON GOVERNMENT, &C. 

the doing an unlawful act, therefore the proper mode of proceed- 
ing, should any such laws be enacted in future, will be to impeach 
and execute the members who moved for and seconded such a 
bill, and put the debtor and the creditor in the same situation thev 
were in, with respect to each other, before such a law was passed. 
Men ought to be made to tremble at the idea of such a barefaced 
act of injustice. It is in vain to talk of restoring credit, or com- 
plain that money cannot be borrowed at legal interest, until every 
idea of tender laws is totally and publicly reprobated and extir- 
pated from among us. 

As to paper money, in any light it can be viewed, »t is at best 
a bubble. Considered as property, it is inconsistent to suppose 
that the breath of an assembly, whose authority expires with the 
year, can give to paper the value and duration of gold. They can- 
not even engage that the next assembly shall receive it in taxes. 
And by the precedent, (for authority there is none,) that one as- 
sembly makes paper money, another may do the same, until con- 
fidence and credit are totally expelled, and all the evils of depre- 
ciation acted over again. The amount, therefore, of paper 
money is this, that it is the illegitimate offspring of assemblies, and 
when their year expires, they leave a vagrant on the hands of the 
public. 

Having now gone through the three subjects proposed in the 
title to this work, I shall conclude with otTering some thoughts on 
the present affairs of the state. 

My idea of a single legist iture was always founded on a hope, 
that whatever personal parties there might be in the state, they 
would all unite and agree in the general principles of good govern- 
ment — that these party differences would be dropped at the 
threshold of the statehouse, and that the public good, or the good 
of the whole, would be the governing principle of the legislature 
within it. 

Party dispute, taken on this ground, would only be, who should 
have the honor of making the laws ; not what the laws should be. 
But when party operates to produce party laws, a single house is 
a single person, and subject to the haste, rashness, and passion of 
individual Sovereignty. At least, it is an aristocracy. 

The form of the present constitution is now made to trample 
on its principles, and the constitutional members are anti-constitu- 
tional legislators. They are fond of supporting the form for the 




DISSERTATIONS ON GOVERNMENT, &C. 409 

sake of the power, and they dethrone the principle to display the 
sceptre. 

The attack of the late assembly on the bank, discovers such a 
want of moderation and prudence, of impartiality and equity, of 
fair and candid inquiry and investigation, of deliberate and un- 
biassed judgment, and such a rashness of thinking and ven- 
geance of power, as is inconsistent with the safety of the re- 
public. It was judging without hearing, and executing without 
trial. 

By such rash, injudicious and violent proceedings, the interest 
of the state is weakened, its prosperity diminished, and its com- 
merce and its specie banished to other places. Suppose the bank 
had not been in an immediate condition to have stood such a sud- 
den attack, what a scene of instant distress would the rashness of 
that assembly have brought upon this city and state. The holders 
of bank notes, whoever they might be, would have been thrown 
into the utmost confusion and difficulties. It is no apology to say 
the house never thought of this, for it was their duty to have 
thought of every thing. 

But by the prudent and provident management of the bank, 
(though unsuspicious of the attack,) it was enabled to stand the 
run upon it without stopping payment a moment, and to prevent 
the evils and mischiefs taking place which the rashness of the 
assembly had a direct tendency to bring on ; a trial that scarcely 
a bank in Europe, under a similar circumstance, could have with- 
stood. 

I cannot see reason sufficient to believe that the hope of the 
house to put down the bank was placed on the withdrawing the 
charter, so much as on the expectation of producing a bankruptcy 
of the bank, by starting a run upon it. If this was any part of their 
project it was a very wicked one, because hundreds might have 
been ruined to gratify a party spleen. 

But this not being the case, what has the attack amounted to, 
but to expose the weakness and rashness, the want of judgment as 
well as justice, of those who made it, and to confirm the credit oi 
the bank more substantially than it was before 1 

The attack, it is true, has had one effect, which is not in the 
power of the assembly to remedy ; it has banished many thousand 
hard dollars from the state. By the means of the bank, Pennsyl- 
vania had the use of a great deal of hard money belonging to citi* 

vol. I. 52 



410 DISSERTATIONS ON GOVERNMENT, &C. 

zens of other states, and that without any interest, for it laid here 
in the nature of deposite, the depositors taking bank notes n 
its stead. But the alarm called those notes in, and the owners 
drew out their cash. 

The banishing the specie served to make room for the paper 
money of the assembly, and we have now paper dollars where we 
might have had silver ones. So that the effect of the paper money 
has been to make less money in the state than there was before. 
Paper money is like dram-drinking, it relieves for a moment by a 
deceitful sensation, but gradually diminshes the natural heat, ana 
leaves the body worse than it found it. Were not this the case, 
and could money be made of paper at pleasure, every sovereign 
in Europe would be as rich as he pleased. But the truth is, that 
it is a bubble and the attempt vanity. Nature has provided the 
proper materials for money, gold and silver, and any attempt of 
ours to rival her is ridiculous. 

But to conclude. If the public will permit the opinion of a 
friend who is attached to no party, and under obligation to none, 
nor at variance with any, and who through a long habit of acquain- 
tance with them has never deceived them, that opinion shall be 
freely given. 

The bank is an institution capable of being made exceedingly 
beneficial to the state, not only as the means of extending and fa- 
cilitating its commerce, but as a means of increasing the quantity 
of hard money in the state. The assembly's paper money serves 
directly to banish or crowd out the hard, because it is issued as 
money and put in the place of hard money. But bank notes are ot 
a very different kind, and produce a contrary effect. They are 
promissory notes payable on demand, and may be taken to the 
bank and exchanged for gold or silver without the least ceremony 
or difficulty. 

The bank, therefore, is obliged to keep a constant stock of hard 
money sufficient for this purpose ; which is what the assembly 
neither does, nor can do by their paper; because the quantity of 
hard money collected by taxes into the treasury is trifling com- 
pared with the quantity that circulates in trade and through the 
bank. 

The method, therefore, to increase the quantity of hard money 
would be to combine the security of the government and the bank 
into one. And instead of issuing paper money that serves t 






DISSERTATIONS ON GOVERNMENT, &C. 411 

banish the specie, to borrow the sum wanted of the bank in bank 
notes, on the condition of the bank exchanging those notes at 
stated periods and quantities, with hard money. 

Paper issued in this manner, and directed to this end, would, in- 
stead of banishing, work itself into gold and silver ; because it 
will then be both the advantage and duty of the bank, and of all 
the mercantile interests connected with it, to procure and import 
gold and silver from any part of the world, to give in exchange for 
the notes. The English bank is restricted to the dealing in no 
other articles of importation than gold and silver, and we may 
make the same use of our bank if we proceed properly with it. 

Those notes will then have a double security, that of the govern- 
ment and that of the bank : and they will not be issued as money, 
but as hostages to be exchanged for hard money, and will, there- 
fore, work the contrary way to what the paper of the assembly, 
uhcombined with the security of the bank, produces : and the in- 
terest allowed the bank will be saved to government, by a saving 
o^ the expenses and charges attending paper emissions. 

It is, as I have already observed in the course of this work, the 
harmony of all the parts of a republic, that constitutes their seve- 
ral and mutual good. A government that is constructed only to 
govern, is not a republican government. It is combining autho- 
rity with usefulness, that in a great measure distinguishes the re- 
publican system from others. 

Paper money appears, at first sight, to be a great saving, or ra- 
ther that it costs nothing ; but it is the dearest money there is. 
The ease with which it is emitted by an assembly at first, serves 
as a trap to catch people in at last. It operates as an anticipation 
of the next year's taxes. If the money depreciates, after it is out, 
it then, as I have already remarked, has the effect of fluctuating 
stock, and the people become stock-jobbers to throw the loss on 
each other. If it does not depreciate, it is then to be sunk by 
taxes at the price of hard money ; because the same quantity of 
produce, or goods, that would procure a paper dollar to pay taxes 
with, would procure a silver one for the same purpose. There- 
fore, in any case of paper money, it is dearer to the country than 
hard money, by all the expense which the paper, printing, signing, 
and other attendant charges come to, and at last goes into the fire. 

Suppose one hundred thousand dollars in paper money to be 
emitted every year by the assembly, and the same sum to be sunk 



412 DISSERTATIONS ON GOVERNMENT, &C. 

every year by taxes, there will then be no more than one hundred 
thousand dollars out at any one time. If the expense of paper 
and printing, and of persons to attend the press while the sheets are 
striking off, signers, &c. be five per cent, it is evident that in the 
course of twenty years' emissions, the one hundred thousand dol- 
lars will cost the country two hundred thousand dollars. Because 
the papermaker's and printer's bills, and the expense of supervi- 
sors and signers, and other attendant charges, will in that time 
amount to as much as the money amounts to ; for the successive 
emissions are but a re-coinage of the same sum. 

But gold and silver require to be coined but once, and will last 
an hundred years, better than paper will one year, and at the end 
of that time be still gold and silver. Therefore, the saving to 
government, in combining its aid and security with that of the bank 
in procuring hard money, will be an advantage to both, and to the 
whole community. 

The case to be provided against, after this, will be, that the 
government do not borrow too much of the bank, nor the bank 
lend more notes than it can redeem ; and, therefore, should any 
tiling of this kind be undertaken, the best way will be to begin with 
a moderate sum, and obierve the effect of it. The interest given 
the bank operates as a bounty on the importation of hard money, 
and which may not be more than the money expended in making 
paper emissions. 

But nothing of this kind, nor any other public undertaking, that 
requires security and duration beyond the year, can be gone upon 
under the present mode of conducting government. The late as- 
sembly, by assuming a sovereign power over every act and matter 
done by the state in former assemblies, and thereby setting up a 
precedent of overhauling and overturning, as the accident of elec- 
tions shall happen or party prevail, have rendered government in- 
competent to all the great objects of the state. They havo 
eventually reduced the public to an annual body like themselves ; 
whereas the public are a standing, permanent body, holding annual 
elections. 

There are several great improvements and undertakings, such 
as inland navigation, building bridges, opening roads of communi- 
cation through the state, and other matters of a public benefit, that 
might be gone upon, but which now cannot, until this govern- 
mental error or defect is remedied. The faith of government, 



DISSERTATIONS ON GOVERNMENT, &C. 413 

under the present mode of conducting it, cannot be relied on. 
Individuals will not venture their money in undertakings of this 
kind, on an act that may be made by one assembly and broken by 
another. When a man can say that he cannot trust the government, 
the importance and dignity of the public is diminished, sapped and 
undermined ; and, therefore, it becomes the public to restore their 
own honor, by setting these matters to rights. 

Perhaps this cannot be effectually done until the time of the next 
convention, when the principles, on which they are to be regulated 
and fixed, may be made a part of the constitution. 

In the mean time the public may keep their affairs in sufficient 
good order, by substituting prudence in the place of authority, and 
electing men into the government, who will at once throw aside 
the narrow prejudices of party, and make the good of the whole 
the ruling object of their conduct. And with this hope, and a sin- 
cere wish for their prosperity, I close my book. 



END OP DISSERTATIONS ON GOVERNMENT. &C. 



ANECDOTE OF JAMES MONROE AND 
RUFUS KING. 



The names of Monroe and King ought not to be mentioned 
in the same breath, but for the purpose of showing the different 
characters of the two ministers. 

When Hamilton Rowan effected his escape from an Irish 
prison and came to Paris, he met Thomas Paine in the street, 
and they agreed to spend the day together in the country. 
Mr. Paine called on Mr. Monroe to inform him of it, and 
that he should not dine with him on that day. On Mr. 
Paine mentioning the name of Hamilton Rowan, Mr. Monroe 
desired Mr. Paine to introduce him, which he did. Mr. Mon- 
roe received him witli great cordiality and respect. Mr. 
Rowan then took his leave, and when they wore descending 
the stairs to go their country walk, Mr. Monroe called Mr. 
Paine back, and said to him, " As Mr. Rowan has met with a 
great many difficulties, it is most probable he may be in diffi- 
culty with respect to money; please to tell him from me that 
I will supply him." 

Compare this nobleness of heart with the base conduct of 
Rufus King towards the comrades of Hamilton Rowan, and 
every man of honour and of feeling must despise and detest 
him. 



ADDRESS FROM BORDENTOWN. 



At an adjourned Meeting of the Republicans of Bordentown, 
and its neighbourhood, held at the house of Thomas Law- 
rence, Colonel Joseph Kirkbride in the chair. 

Resolved, That the following Address, signed by the Chair- 
man, be published in the True American, printed by Wil- 
son and Blackwell, of Trenton, and that the patriotic 
Printers in other parts be requested to republish it : — 

To our Fellow-Citizens. 

Federalism and falsehood, like cursing and swearing, are 
become so united, that to think of one is to remember both. 

The following electioneering hand-bill, drawn up by a 
Federal committee of the county of Rensselaer, state of 
New-York, was sent by post from thence to this place, but by 
whom, or for what purpose, is not known, as it was enclosed 
in a blank cover. 

The aforesaid meeting of the Federal committee was held 
for the purpose of nominating and recommending candidates 
for the election then ensuing ; but when the election came on, 
it unfortunately happened, (for lying, like a stumbling horse, 
will lay his rider in the dust,) that none of the candidates re- 
commended by the meeting were elected. The Republican 
ticket overrun the Federal ticket more than two to one. 

The introductory paragraphs in the hand-bill (as will be 
seen by the reading) are hypocritical, inserted to deceive at 
first sight, and make the unwary believe it is a republican 
hand-bill recommending Republican candidates. Those para- 
graphs speak the pure language of democracy and Republican 
government. The right of the people to elect their law-givers 



416 ADDRESS FROM BORDENTOWN. 

is spoken of as the boast of Americans. It is thus the apostate 
leaders of the faction counterfeit the principles of democracy 
to work its overthrow. The language of their pen in the 
former part, but their hand-bill address is not the language of 
their hearts ; nor is it the language of their lips on any other 
occasion than to deceive at an election. They have long tried 
the foul language of abuse without success, and they are now 
trying what hypocrisy will do. But let the hand-bill speak for 
itself. 

" To the Independent Electors of the county of Rensselaer, 

" Fellow-Citizens ! 
" The following candidates for senators from the eastern dis- 
trict, and for Members of Assembly for the county of Rensse- 
laer, are recommended to your confidence and support at the 
ensuing election, by the united voice of your committees col- 
lected from each of the towns in the county, viz. 

FOR SENATORS. 

Moses Vail, of the county of Rensselaer, 
Stephen Lush, of the city and county of Albany, 
Ebenezer Clark, of the county of Washington, 
Daniel Paris, of the county of Montgomery, 
William Bailv, of the county of Clinton. 

FOR MEMBERS OF ASSEMBLY. 

John D. Dickinson, of the town of Troy, 
Arent Van Dyck, of Schodack, 
Hezekiah Hull, of Stephentown, 
Randal Spencer, of Petersburgh, 
Jeremiah Scnyler, of Hoosick. 

" Among the privileges, fellow-citizens, which belong to 
freemen, perhaps there is no one more dear to them, than that 
of selecting from among themselves the persons who shall 
make the laws by which they arc to be governed. From this 
source arises a consolation, which is the boast of Americans, 
that in elective governments like ours, the people are their 



ADDRESS FROM BORDENTOWN. 417 

own law-givers. To the exercise of this privilege, equally in- 
teresting to ourselves and important to society, we shall in a 
few days be called. 

" It becomes us, then, fellow-citizens, when about to enter 
upon a duty so essential to the welfare of the community, to 
divest ourselves of all unwarrantable prejudices ; and while 
with one hand we offer the names of our candidates, to be 
able, with the other on our hearts, to appeal to Him who 
knows our secret intentions, to witness the rectitude of our 
conduct. 

" Under the full weight of these impressions, the candidates 
whose names we here take the liberty of offering for your 
support, have been selected ; and without wishing to draw any 
invidious comparisons between them and those of our political 
opponents, we feel justified in saying, that they are men whose 
patriotism and fidelity entitle them to the confidence of their 
countrymen. Their principles are truly Republican. Not of 
that kind of modem Republicanism which consists in a hete- 
rogeneous mass of jacobinism and democracy ; but that which 
the constitution of our country recognizes ; that which the 
immortal Washington in his life practised, and by his invalu- 
able legacy transmitted to the world. 

" In these our candidates, we do not promise advocates of un- 
restrained liberty ; neither can we engage that the people shall 
be entirely released from the burthen of supporting the go- 
vernment which protects them. These are promises incom- 
patible with rational liberty. They are empty sounds, calcu- 
lated to ensnare and deceive : therefore we leave the full and 
exclusive use of them with our adversaries, to whom they of 
right belong. To the syren sound of delusive and false pro- 
mises are they in a great measure indebted for the power they 
now hold. 

" We have been told that the administration of the Federal 
government, by Washington and Adams, was tyrannical and 
corrupt ; that a system of profusion and extravagance was 
pursuing, which must ruin the nation. We have been called 
upon by all that was dear to us, to look to Jefferson for relief, 
and have been promised every thing which could allure the 
credulous, or delude the unwary. But what have we realised ? 

vol. i. 53 



418 ADDRESS FROM BORDEXTOWX. 

What, alas! but disappointment ? Pause and reflect. Instead 
of a system of equal taxation for the support of government, 
we now see the lordly Virginian rolling over his plantation 
in his gilded coach, in the free use of all the luxuries of life, 
but exempt from taxes ; while we are obliged to pay a duty on 
the necessaries of life, amounting to nearly one third part of 
their value. Instead of an American, whose integrity has 
stood the test of the severest scrutiny, we behold, with the 
keys of our treasury in his hand, & foreigner, famous only for 
having instigated an insurrection in Pennsylvania. Instead of 
a navy sufficient to protect our commerce against the lawless 
depredations of pirates and marauders, we have seen our ves- 
sels sacrificed under the hammer of the auctioneer for less than 
half their value ; and our commerce unprotected, and a prey to 
the pusillanimous and detestable Spaniards. 

" But startle not at these things, fellow-citizens — We could a 
tale unfold, which would arouse the just indignation of every 
friend to his country. We could tell you of millions of our 
money applied to secret purposes ! Of immense sums sacrificed 
in the sale of the bank shares of the United States, amounting 
to nearly two hundred thousand dollars ! We could tell you of 
another enormous sum of one hundred and fourteen thousand 
dollars, totally unaccounted for by the commissioners of the 
sinking fund. We could tell you, that instead of the salaries 
of the officers of government being diminished, they have in- 
creased about thirty thousand dollars! — But we forbear. — 
While the administration of the government is in their hands, 
it is our duty to submit, though we should be buried iu its 
ruins. 

" But fortunately we are not without a corrective for the 
evil. To the good sense of an enlightened public, and the 
freedom of our elections, we can with confidence appeal. Let 
us arouse, then, and rally round the constitution of our coun- 
try, which, though mangled by the assassinating hand of demo- 
cracy, is yet dear to us. Let us no longer be lulled to inac- 
tivity by these canting hypocrites, who draw near to us with 
their lips, while their hearts are far from us : but like freemen, 
indignant at the injuries heaped upon our country, come for- 
ward to the support of those principles which have heretofore 



ADDRESS FROM BORDENTOWN. 41$ 

actuated us ; and say to the work of destruction, hitherto shalt 
thou come, but no further, and here shall thy mad career be 
stayed. 

" By order of the meeting, 

" DERICK LANE, Chairman. 
"John E. Van Allen, Secretary. 
" Greenbush, April 7, 1803.' 



Here ends the hand-bill. We know not if it was publicly 
circulated at the election, or given privately among a few as a 
cue for the language they were to hold ; but as it is come into 
our hands, we give it the publicity which the framers of it were 
probably ashamed to do ; and we subjoin to it our own obser- 
vations, as a guard against similar impositions at the elections 
in our own state, in October next. 

Of the former part of the hand-bill we have already spoken — 
we now come to the latter part. 

" We could a tale unfold," say the framers of this bill, " that 
would arouse the just indignation of every friend to his 
country." 

The phraseology of unfolding a tale is borrowed from Shak- 
speare's plays. It suits very well on the stage where every 
thing is fiction, but sounds fantastical in real life ; and when 
used in an electioneering address, it suggests the idea of a 
comedian politician spouting a speech. 

It is principles and facts, and not tales, that we concern our- 
selves about. But if they have a tale to tell, why have they 
not told it ? Insinuation is the language of cowardice and de- 
traction ; and though the manly sense of free men despise it, 
the justice of the country ought to punish it. 

" We could tell you (say they) of millions of our money ap- 
plied to secret purposes — Of immense sums sacrificed in the 
sale of the bank shares of the United States amounting to 
nearly two hundred thousand dollars. We could tell you of 
another enormous sum of one hundred and fourteen thousand 
dollars totally unaccounted for by the commissioners of the 
sinking fund. We could tell you that instead of the salaries 



420 ADDRESS FROM BORDEXTOWN. 

of the officers of government being diminished, they have 
been increased about thirty thousand dollars. But" (here one 
would suppose they were going to tell. No. They are going 
not to tell, for they bring themselves off by saying) But we 
forbear ; and then in the true cant of hypocrisy, they add — 
While the administration of the government is in their hands 
(meaning in the hands of the present administration) it is our 
duty to submit, though we should he buried in its ruins. — 
Alas, poor Feds ! ! ! 

But from this state of sackcloth and despair they " arouse" 
and shake themselves into new life, as a drowning cur shakes 
himself when he reaches the shore ; and they say in the next 
paragraph — " But fortunately we are not without a corrective 
for the evil. To the good sense of an enlightened public and 
the freedom of our elections we can with confidence appeal." 

They have now made their appeal. The election is over ; 
and the public to whom they have appealed have passed sen- 
tence of contempt and condemnation upon them ; and said to 
them, not in the fancied importance of words, but in the loud 
language of fact, " Here shall thy mad career be stayed." Go 
home and rave no more. 

In bringing before the public this piece of Federal trumpery, 
the work of some fantastical phrase-maker, who to a jingle of 
words adds a jumble of ideas, and contradicts in one paragraph 
what he says in another, we feel that sincerity of concern 
which a desire for peace and the love of our country inspire. 

We possess a land highly favoured by nature, and protected 
by Providence. We have nothing to do but to be happy. The 
men who now assail with abuse the administration of our 
choice, and disturb the public tranquillity with their clamours, 
were once entrusted with power. — They dishonoured by vio- 
lence, and betrayed by injustice, the trust reposed in them, and 
the public has dismissed them as unworthy of their confidence. 
They are now endeavouring to regain, by deceit and falsehood, 
what they lost by arrogance and apostacy. As a faction, un- 
just and turbulent, they feel what they ought to feel, the pain 
of disappointment and disgrace. The prosperous condition of 
the country and of its public affairs, under the present wise 
and mild administration, is, to minds like theirs, an. agonizing 



ADDRESS FROM BORDENTOWN. 421 

scene. Every thing that goes right brings sorrow to them ; 
and they mistake their own malignant feelings for a public 
sentiment. 

As citizens, they live under the same laws with every other 
citizen. No party oppression is acted upon them. They have 
the same rights, the same privileges, the same civil and reli- 
gious freedom, that other citizens enjoy ; but the cankered 
heart of faction is a stranger to repose. 

When power was in their hands, they used it oppressively 
and ignorantly. They encouraged mobs, and insulted in the 
streets the supporters and friends of the Revolution, and 
taught their children to do the same. They enacted unjust 
laws, calling them alien and sedition laws ; and though their 
forefathers were all aliens, and many of themselves but one 
remove from it, they persecuted the aliens of the present day, 
who, flying from oppression, as their own forefathers had 
done, came to live among us, and prohibited others from ar- 
riving. 

They established in America, as Hobespierre had done in 
France, a system of terror, and appointed judges disposed to 
execute it. Destitute of economy as they were of principle, 
they filled the country with unnecessary officers, and loaded it 
with taxes ; and had their power continued another election, 
supported as their plan was by a standing army, the taxes, in- 
stead of being reduced as they are now, must have been 
doubled. Is it any wonder, then, that with all these iniquities 
on their heads, the public has dismissed them ? 

That men should differ in opinion is natural, and sometimes 
advantageous. It serves as a check on the extremes of each 
other. But the leaders of the present faction advance no opi- 
nion and declare no principle. They say not what their con- 
duct in government would be were they restored to power. 
They deal altogether in abuse and slander. 

The country knows what the character and conduct of the 
present administration is — that it cultivates peace abroad and 
prosperity at home, and manages the revenue with honourable 
economy. Every citizen is protected in his rights, and every 
profession of religion in its independence. These are the 



422 ADDRESS FROM BORDENTOWN. 

blessings we enjoy under the present administration ; and what 
more can a people expect, or a government perform ? 
By order of the meeting, 

J. KIRKBRIDE, Chairman. 
Thomas Paine, Secretary. 

Ordered — That five hundred copies in hand bills be printed 
for the use of the meeting. 



TO THE ENGLISH PEOPLE, ON THE 
INVASION OF ENGLAND. 



In casting my eye over England and America, and compar- 
ing them together, the difference is very striking. The two 
countries were created by the same power, and peopled from 
the same stock. What then has caused the difference ? Have 
those who emigrated to America improved, or those whom they 
left behind degenerated ? There are as many degrees of differ- 
ence in the political morality of the two people, as there are 
of longitude between the two countries. 

In the science of cause and effect, every thing that enters 
into the composition of either must be allowed its proportion 
of influence. In investigating, therefore, into the cause of this 
difference, we must take into the calculation the difference of 
the two systems of government, the hereditary and the repre- 
sentative. Under the hereditary system, it is the government 
that forms and fashions the political character of the people. 
In the representative system, it is the people that form the 
character of the government. Their own happiness as citi- 
zens forms the basis of their conduct, and the guide of their 
choice. Now, is it more probable, that an hereditary govern- 
ment should become corrupt, and corrupt the people by its 
example, or that a whole people should become corrupt, and 
produce a corrupt government ; for the point where the cor- 
ruption begins, becomes the source from whence it afterwards 
spreads. 

While men remained in Europe as subjects of some heredi- 
tary potentate, they had ideas conformable to that condition ; 
but when they arrived in America, they found themselves in 
possession of a new character, the character of sovereignty ; 
and, like converts to a new religion, they became inspired with 



424 TO THE ENGLISH TEOrLE, 

new principles. Elevated above their former rank, they con- 
sidered government and public affairs as part of their own con- 
cern, for they were to pay the expense, and they watched them 
with circumspection. They soon found that government was 
not that complicated thing, enshrined in mystery, which church 
and state, to play into each other's hands, had represented it; 
and that to conduct it with proper effect, was to conduct it 
justly. Common sense, common honesty, and civil manners, 
qualify a man for government; and besides this, put man in a 
situation that requires iicav thinking, and the mind will grow 
up to it, for, like the body, it improves by exercise. Man is 
but a learner all his life-time. 

But whatever be the cause of the difference of character be- 
tween the government and people of England, and those of 
America, the effect arising from that difference is as distin- 
guishable as the sun from the moon. We see America flourish- 
ing in peace, cultivating friendship with all nations, and redu- 
cing her public debt and taxes, incurred by the revolution. On 
the contrary, we see England almost perpetually in war, or 
warlike disputes, and her debt and taxes continually increasing. 
Could we suppose a stranger, who knew nothing of the origin 
of the two countries, he would, from observation, conclude, 
that America was the old country, experienced and sage, and 
England the new, eccentric and wild. 

Scarcely had England drawn home her troops from America, 
after the revolutionary war, than she was on the point of plung- 
ing herself into a war with Holland, on account of the Stadt- 
holder ; then with Russia ; then with Spain, on the account of 
Nootka cat-skins ; and actually with France to prevent her 
revolution. Scarcely had she made peace with France, and 
before she had fulfilled her own part of the treaty, then she 
declared war again to avoid fulfilling the treaty. In her treaty 
of peace with America, she engaged to evacuate the western 
ports within six months, but having obtained peace she refused 
to fulfil the conditions, and kept possession of the posts and 
embroiled herself in an Indian war. In her treaty of peace 
with France, she engaged to evacuate Malta within three months, 
but having obtained peace, she refused to evacuate Malta, and 
began a new war. 



ON THE INVASION OF ENGLAND. 425 

All these matters pass before the eyes of the world, who 
form their own opinion thereon, regardless of what English 
newspapers may say of France, or French papers say of 
England. The non-fulfilment of a treaty is a case that every 
body can understand. They reason upon it as they would on 
a contract between two individuals, and in so doing they reason 
from a right foundation. The affected pomp and mystification 
of courts make no alteration in the principle. Had France 
declared war to compel England to fulfil the treaty, as a man 
would commence a civil action to compel a delinquent party to 
fulfil a contract, she would have stood acquitted in the opinion 
of nations. But that England still holding Malta, should go to 
war for Malta, is a paradox not easily solved, unless it be sup- 
posed that the peace was insidious from the beginning, that it 
was concluded with the expectation that the military ardour of 
France would cool, or a new order of things arise, or a na- 
tional discontent prevail, that would favour a non-execution of 
the treaty, and leave England arbiter of the fate of Malta. 

Something like this, which was like a vision in the clouds, 
must have been the calculation of the British ministry ; for 
certainly they did not expect the war would take the turn it 
has. Could they have foreseen, and they ought to have fore- 
seen, that the declaration of war was the same as sending a 
challenge to Buonaparte to invade England, and make it the 
seat of war, they hardly would have done it unless they were 
mad ; for in any event, such a war might produce, in a mili- 
tary view, it is England would be the sufferer unless it termi- 
nated in a wise revolution. One of the causes assigned for 
this declaration of war by the British ministry, was that Buo- 
naparte had cramped their commerce. If by cramping their 
commerce is to be understood that of encouraging and extend- 
ing the commerce of France, he had a right, and it was his 
duty to do it. The prerogative of monopoly belongs to no 
nation. But to make this one of the causes of war, consider- 
ing their commerce in consequence of that declaration is now 
cramped ten times more, is like the case of a foolish man, who, 
after losing an eye in fight, renews the combat to revenge the 
injury, and loses the other eye. 

Those who never experienced an invasion* by suffering it, 

vol. I, 54 



420 to Tin: English people, 

which the English people have not, can have but little idea of 
it. Between the two armies the country will be desolated 
wherever the armies are, and that as much by their own armv 
as by the enemy. The farmers on the coast will be the first 
sufferers ; for, whether their stock of cattle, corn, &c. be seized 
by the invading army, or driven off, or burnt, by orders of their 
own government, the effect will be the same to them. As to 
the revenue, which has been collected altogether in paper, since 
the bank stopped payment, it will go to destruction the instant 
an invading army lands; and, as to the effective government, 
there can be but little where two armies are contending for vie- 
tory in a country small as England is. 

With respect to the general politics of Europe, the British 
ministry could not have committed a greater error than to make 
Malta the ostensible cause of the war ; for though Malta is an 
unproductive rock, and will be an expense to any nation that 
possesses it, there is not a power in Europe will consent that 
England should have it, It is a situation capable of annoying 
and controlling the commerce of other nations in the Medi- 
terranean ; and the conduct of England on the seas and in the 
Baltic, lias shown the danger of her possessing Malta. Buo- 
naparte, by opposing her claim, has all Europe with him : Eng- 
land, }>y asserting it, loses all. Had the English ministry stu- 
died for an object that would put them at variance with all na- 
tions, from the north of .Europe to the south, they could not 
have done it more effectually 

But what is Malta to the people of England, compared with 
the evils and dangers they already suffer in consequence of it? 
It is their own government that has brought this upon them. 
"Were Burke now living, he would be deprived of his exclama- 
tion, that "the agr of chivalry is gone;" for this declaration 
of war is like a challenge sent from one knight of the sword to 
another knight of the sword to fight him on the challenger's 
ground, and England is staked as the prize. 

But though the British ministry began this war for the sake 
of Malta, they are now artful enough to keep Malta out of 
sight. Not a word is now said about Malta in any of their 
parliamentary speeches and messages. The king's speech is 
silent upon the subject, and the invasion is put in its place, as 






ON THE INVASION OF ENGLAND. 427 

if the invasion was the cause of the war, and not the conse- 
quences of it. This policy is easily seen through. The case 
is, they went to war without counting" the cost, or calculating 
upon events, and they are now obliged to shift the scenes to 
conceal the disgrace. 

If they were disposed to try experiments upon France, they 
chose for it the worst possible time, as well as the worst pos- 
sible object. France has now for its chief the most enterpri- 
sing and fortunate man, either for deep project or daring exe- 
cution, the world has known for many ages. Compared with 
him, there is not a man in the British government, or under 
its authority, has any chance with him. That he is ambitious, 
the world knows, and he always was so ; but he knew where 
to stop. He had reached the highest point of probable expect- 
ation, and having reduced all his enemies to peace, had set 
himself down to the improvement of agriculture, manufactures, 
and commerce at home, and his conversation with the English 
ambassador, Whitworth, showed he wished to continue so. In 
this view of his situation, could any thing be worse policy than 
to give to satisfied ambition a new object, and provoke it into 
action. Yet this the British ministry have done. 

The plan of a descent upon England by gun-botits, began 
after the first peace with Austria, and the acquisition of Bel- 
gium by France. Before that acquisition, France had no terri- 
tory on the North Sea, and it is there the descent will be car- 
ried on. Dunkirk was then her northern limit. The English 
coast opposite to France, on the Channel, from the straits be- 
tween Dover and Calais to the Land's End, about three hun- 
dred miles, is high, bold, and rocky, to the height, in many 
places, perpendicular, of three, four, or five hundred feet, and 
it is only where there are breaks in the rocks, as at Ports- 
mouth, Plymouth, &c, that a landing can be made ; and as 
those places could be easily protected, because England was 
mistress of the Channel, France had no opportunity of making 
an invasion, unless she could first defeat the English fleet. But 
the union of Belgium to France makes a new order of things. 

The English coast on the North Sea, including the counties 
of Essex, Suffolk, Norfolk, and Lincolnshire, is as level as a 
bowling green, and approachable in every part for more than 



428 TO THE ENGLISH PEOTLE, 

two hundred miles. The shore is a clean firm sand, where a 
flat-bottomed boat may row dry a-ground. The country peo- 
ple use it as a race-ground, and for other sports, when the tide 
is out. It is the weak and defenceless part of England, and it 
is impossible to make it otherwise: and besides this, there is 
not a port or harbour in it where ships of the line or large fri- 
gates can rendezvous for its protection. The Belgic coast, 
and that of Holland, which joins it, are directly opposite this 
defenceless part, and opens a new passage for invasion. The 
Dutch fishermen know this coast better than the English them- 
selves, except those who live upon it; and the Dutch smug- 
glers know every creek and corner in it. 

The original plan, formed in the time of the Directory, (but 
now much more extensive,) was to build one thousand boats, 
each sixty feet long, sixteen feet broad, to draw about two feet 
water, to carry a twenty-four or thirty-six pounder in the head, 
and a field-piece in the stern, to be run out as soon as they 
touched ground. Each boat was to carry an hundred men, 
making in the whole one hundred thousand, and to row with 
twenty or twenty-five oars on a side. Buonaparte was appoint- 
ed to the command, and by an agreement between him and 
me, I was to accompany him, as the intention of the expedition 
was to give the people of England an opportunity of forming 
a government for themselves, and thereby bring about peace. 
I have no reason to suppose this part of the plan is altered, 
because there is nothing better Buonaparte can do. As to the 
clamour spread by some of the English newspapers, that he 
comes for plunder, it is absurd. Buonaparte is too good a 
general to undiscipline and dissolute his army by plundering, 
and too good a politician, as well as too much accustomed to 
great achievements, to make plunder his object. He goes 
against the government that has declared war against him. 

As the expedition could choose its time of setting off, either 
after a storm, when the English would he blown off, or in a 
calm, or in a fog; and as thirty-six hours rowing would be able 
to carry it over, the probability is, it would arrive, and when 
arrived, no ship of the line or large frigate could approach it, 
on account of the shoalness of the coast ; and besides this, the 
boats would form a floating battery, close in with the shore, of 



ON THE INVASION OF EN-GLAND. 429 

a thousand pieces of heavy artillery ; and the attempt of Nel- 
son against the gun-boats at Boulogne, shows the insufficiency 
of ships in such situations. About two hundred and fifty gun- 
boats were built, when the expedition was abandoned for that 
of Egypt, to which the preparations had served as a feint. 

The present impolitic war by the English government has 
now renewed the plan, and that with much greater energy than 
before, and with national unanimity. All France is alive to 
chastise the English government for recommencing the war, 
and all Europe stands still to behold it. The preparations for 
the invasion have already demonstrated to France what Eng- 
land ought never to have suffered her to know, which is, that 
she can hold the English government in terror, and the whole 
country in alarm, whenever she pleases, and as long as she 
pleases, and that without employing a single ship of the line, 
and more effectually than if she had an hundred sail. The 
boasted navy of England is outdone by gun-boats! It is a 
revolution in naval tactics ; but we live in an age of revolu- 
tions. 

The preparations in England for defence are also great, but 
they are marked with an ominous trait of affairs in England. 
Not an address has been presented to the king by any county, 
city, town, or corporation, since the declaration of war. The 
people unite for the protection of themselves and property 
against whatever events may happen, but they are not pleased, 
and their silence is the expression of their discontent. 

Another circumstance, curious and awkward, was the con- 
duct of the House of Commons with respect to their address 
to the king, in consequence of the king's speech at the opening 
of the parliament. The address, which is always an echo of 
the speech, was voted without opposition, and this equivocal 
silence passed for unanimity. The next thing was to present 
- it, and it was made the order for the next day that the House 
should go up in a body to the king, with the speaker at their 
head, for that purpose. The time fixed was half after three, 
and it was expected the procession would be numerous, three 
or four hundred at least, in order to show their zeal, and their 
loyalty, and their thanks to the king for his intention of taking 
the field. But when half after three arrived, only thirty mem- 



430 TO THE ENGLISH PEOPLE, 

bers were present, and without forty (the number that makes 
a House) the address could not be presented. The serjeant 
was then sent out, with the authority of a press-warrant, to 
search for members, and by four o'clock he returned with just 
enough to make up forty, and the procession set off with the 
slowness of a funeral ; for it was remarked it went slower than 
usual. 

Such a circumstance, in such a critical juncture of affairs, 
and on such an occasion, shows, at least, a great indifference 
towards the government. It was like saying, you have brought 
us into a great deal of trouble, and we have no personal thanks 
to make to you. We have voted the address, as a customary 
matter of form, and we leave it to find its way to you as well 
as it can. 

If the invasion succeed, I hope Buonaparte will remember 
that this war has not been provoked by the people. It is alto- 
gether the act of the government, without their consent or 
knowledge; and though the late peace appears to have been 
insidious from the first, on the part of the government, it was 
received by the people with a sincerity of joy. 

There is yet, perhaps, one way, if it be not too late, to put 
an end to this burthensome state of things, and which threatens 
to be worse, which is, for the people, now they are embodied 
for their own protection, to instruct their representatives in 
Parliament to move for the fulfilment of the treaty of Amiens, 
for a treaty ought to be fulfilled. The present is an uncom- 
mon case, accompanied with uncommon circumstances, and it 
must be got over by means suited to the occasion. What is 
Malta to them? The possession of it might serve to extend 
the patronage and influence of the crown, on the appointment 
to new offices, and the part that would fall to the people would 
be to pay the expense. The more acquisitions the government 
makes abroad, the more taxes the people have to pay at home. 
This has always been the case in England. 

The non-fulfilment of a treaty ruins the honour of a govern- 
ment, ami spreads a reproach over the character of a nation. 
But when a treaty of peace is made with the concealed design 
of not fulfilling it, and war is declared for the avowed purpose 
of avoiding it, the case is still worse. The representative 



ON THE INVASION OF ENGLAND. 431 

system does not put it in the power, of an individual to declare 
war of his own will. It must be the act of the body of the 
representatives, for it is their constituents who are to pay the 
expense. The state which the people of England are now in, 
shows the extreme danger of trusting this power to the caprice 
of an individual, whatever title he may bear. In that country 
this power is assumed by what is called the crown, for it is not 
constituted by any legal authority. It is a branch from the 
trunk of monarchical despotism. 

By this impolitic declaration of war the government of Eng- 
land have put every thing to issue; and no wise general would 
commence an action he might avoid, where nothing is to be 
gained by gaining the battle, and every thing is to be lost by 
losing it. An invasion and a revolution, which consequently 
includes that of Ireland, stand now on the same ground. "What 
part the people may finally take in a contest pregnant with 
such an issue is yet to be known. By the experiment of raising 
the country in mass, the government have put arms into the 
hands of men whom they would have sent to Botany Bay but 
a few months before, had they found a pike in their possession. 
The honour of this project, which is copied from France, is 
claimed by Mr. Pitt ; and no project of his has yet succeeded, 
in the end, except that of raising the taxes, and ruining the 
bank. All his schemes in the revolutionary war of France 
failed of success, and finished in discredit. If Buonaparte is 
remarkable for an unexampled series of good fortune, Mr. Pitt 
is remarkable for a contrary fate, and his want of popularity 
with the people, whom he deserted and betrayed on the ques- 
tion of a reform of parliament, sheds no beams of glory round 
his projects. 

If the present eventful crisis, for an eventful one it is, should 
end in a revolution, the people of England have, within their 
glance, the benefit of experience both in theory and fact. This 
was not the case at first. The American revolution began on 
untried ground. The representative system of government 
was then unknown in practice, and but little thought of in 
theory. The idea that man must be governed by effigy and 
show, and that superstitious reverence was necessary to es- 
tablish authority, had so benumbed the reasoning faculties of 



432 TO THE ENGLISH PEOPLE. 

men, that some bold exertion was necessary to shock them 
into reflection. But the experiment has now been made. The 
practice of almost thirty years, the last twenty of which have 
been of peace, notwithstanding the wrong-headed tumultuous 
administration of John Adams, has proved the excellence of 
the representative system, and the new world is now the 
preceptor of the old. The children are become the fathers of 
their progenitors. 

With respect to the French revolution, it was begun by good 
men and on good principles, and I have always believed it 
would have gone on so, had not the provocative interference of 
foreign powers, of which Pitt was the principal and vindictive 
agent, distracted it into madness, and sown jealousies among 
the leaders. 

The people of England have now two revolutions before 
them. The one as an example ; the other as a warning. Their 
own wisdom will direct them what to choose and what to avoid, 
and in every thing which regards their happiness, combined 
with the common good of mankind, I wish them honour and 
success. 

THOMAS PAINE. 

New York, May, 1804. 



TO THE 

FRENCH INHABITANTS OF LOUISIANA. 



A publication having the appearance of a memorial and 
remonstrance, to be presented to Congress at the ensuing ses- 
sion, has appeared in several papers. It is therefore open to 
examination, and I offer you my remarks upon it. The title 
and introductory paragraph are as follows: 

*' To the Congress of the United States, in Senate and the 
House of Representatives convened. 

" We the subscribers, planters, merchants, and other inhabi- 
tants of Louisiana, respectfully approach the legislature of the 
United States with a memorial of our rights, a remonstrance 
against certain laws which contravene them, and a petition for 
that redress to which the laws of nature, sanctioned by positive 
stipulations, have entitled us." 

It often happens that when one party, or one that thinks 
itself a party, talks much about its rights, it puts those of the 
other party upon examining into their own, and such is the effect 
produced by your memorial. 

A single reading of that memorial will show it is the work of 
some person who is not of your people. His acquaintance 
with the cause, commencement, progress, and termination of 
the American revolution, decides this point ; and his making 
our merits in that revolution the ground of your claims, as if 
our merits could become yours, shows he does not understand 
your situation. 

We obtained our rights by calmly understanding principles, 
and by the successful event of a long, obstinate, and expensive 
war. But it is not incumbent on us to fight the battles of the 
world for the world's profit. You are already participating, 
without any merit or expense in obtaining it, the blessings of 

vol. i. 55 



i'Si TO THE FRENCH INHABITANTS OF LOUISIANA. 

freedom acquired by ourselves; and in proportion as you 
become initiated into the principles and practice of the re- 
presentative system of government, of which you have yet 
had no experience, you will participate more, and finally be 
partakers of the whole. You see what mischief ensued in 
France by "the possession of power before they understood 
principles. They earned liberty in words, but not in fact. 
The writer of this was in France throuorh the whole of the 
revolution, and knows the truth of what he speaks ; for after 
endeavouring to give it principle, he had nearly fallen a victim 
to its rage. 

There is a great want of judgment in the person who drew 
up your memorial. He has mistaken your case, and forgotten 
his eicn ; and by trying to court your applause has injured 
your pretensions. He has written like a lawyer, straining 
every point that would please his client, without studying his 
advantage. I find no fault with the composition of the memo- 
rial, for it is well written ; nor with the principles o( liberty it 
contains, considered in the abstract The error lies in the mis- 
application of them, and in assuming a ground they have not ■ 
right to stand upon. Instead of their serving you as a ground 

of Declamation against us. they change into a satire on your- 

B< Ives. Why did you not speak thus when you ought to have 
spoken it. We fought for liberty when you stood quiet in 

slavery. 

The author of the memorial injudiciously confounding two 

distinct cases together, has spoken as if he was the memorialist 
of a body of Americans, who after sharing equally with us in 

all the dangers and ha rds hips of the revolutionary war, had 

retired to a distance and made a settlement for themselves. If, 

in such a situation, Congress had established a temporary go- 
vernment over them, in which they were not personally con- 
sulted, they would have had a right to speak as the memorial 
speaks. But your situation is different from what the situation 
of such persons would be, and therefore their ground of recla- 
mation cannot of right become yours. You are arriving at 
freedom by the easiest means that any people ever enjoyed it; 
without contest, without expense, and even without any con- 
trivance of your own. And you already so far mistake princi- 



TO THE FRENCH INHABITANTS OF LOUISIANA. 435 

pies, that under the name of rights you ask for powers; power 
to import and enslave Africans; and to govern a territory 
that we have purchased. 

To give colour to your memorial, you refer to the treaty of 
cession, (in which you were not one of the contracting parties,) 
concluded at Paris between the governments of the United 
States and France. 

" The third article (you say) of the treaty lately concluded 
at Paris declares, that the inhabitants of the ceded territory 
shall be incorporated in the union of the United States, and 
admitted, as soon as possible, according to the principles of 
the Federal Constitution, to the enjoyment of all the rights, 
advantages, and immunities of citizens of the United States; 
and, in the mean time, they shall be protected in the enjoy- 
ment of their liberty, property, and the exercise of the religion 
they profess." 

As from your former condition, you cannot be much ac- 
quainted with diplomatic policy, and I am convinced that even 
the gentleman who drew up the memorial is not, I will explain 
to you the grounds of this article. It may prevent your run- 
ning into further errors. 

The territory &£ Louisiana had been so often ceded to differ- 
ent European powers, that it became a necessary article on the 
part of France, and for the security of Spain, the ally of 
France, and which accorded perfectly with our own principles 
and intentions, that it should be ceded no more ; and this ar- 
ticle, stipulating for the incorporation of Louisiana into the 
union of the United States, stands as a bar against all future 
cession, and at the same time, as well as " in the mean time, 19 
secures to you a civil and political permanency, personal secu- 
rity and liberty which you never enjoyed before. 

France and Spain might suspect, (and the suspicion would 
not have been ill-founded had the cession been treated for in 
the administration of John Adams, or when Washington was 
president, and Alexander Hamilton president over him,) that 
we bought Louisiana for the British government, or with a 
view of selling it to her ; and though such suspicion had no 
just ground to stand upon with respect to our present presi- 
dent, Thomas Jefferson, who is not only not a man of intrigue, 



436 TO THE FRENCH INHABITANTS OF LOUISIANA. 

but who possesses that honest pride of principle that cannot be 
intrigued with, and which keep intriguers at a distance, the ar- 
ticle was nevertheless necessary as a precaution against future 
contingencies. But you, from not knowing the political ground 
of the article, apply to yourselves personally and exclusively, 
what had reference to the territory, to prevent its falling into 
the hands of any foreign power that might endanger the Spa- 
nish dominion in America, or those of the French in the West 
India Islands. 

You claim, (you say,) to be incorporated into the union of 
the United States, and your remonstrances on this subject are 
unjust and without cause. 

You are already incorporated into it as fully and effectually 
as the Americans themselves are, who are settled in Louisiana. 
You enjoy the same rights, privileges, advantages, and immuni- 
ties, which they enjoy ; and when Louisiana, or some part of it, 
shall be erected into a constitutional state, you also will be 
citizens equally with them. 

You speak in your memorial, as if you were the only people 
who were to live in Louisiana, and as if the territory was pur- 
chased that you exclusively might govern it. In both these 
cases you are greatly mistaken. The emigrations from the 
United States into the purchased territory, and the population 
arising therefrom, will, in a few years, exceed you in numbers. 
It is but twenty-six years since Kentucky began to be settled, 
and it already contains more than double your population. 

In a candid view of the case, you ask for what would be in- 
jurious to yourselves to receive, and unjust in us to grant. In- 
jurious, because the settlement of Louisiana will go on much 
faster under the government and guardianship of Congress, 
than if the government of it were committed to your hands ; 
and consequently, the landed property you possessed as indi- 
viduals when the treaty was concluded, or have purchased 
since, will increase so much faster in value. — Unjust to our- 
selves, because as the reimbursement of the purchase money 
must come out of the sale of the lands to new settlers, the go- 
vernment of it cannot suddenly go out of the hands of Con- 
gress. They are guardians of that property for all the people 
of the United States. And besides this, as the new settlers 



TO THE FRENCH INHABITANTS OF LOUISIANA. 43*7 

will be chiefly from the United States, it would be unjust and 
ill policy to put them and their property under the jurisdiction 
of a people whose freedom they had contributed to purchase. 
You ought also to recollect, that the French Revolution has not 
exhibited to the world that grand display of principles and 
rights, that would induce settlers from other countries to put 
themselves under a French jurisdiction in Louisiana. Be- 
ware of intriguers who may push you on from private motives 
of their own. 

You complain of two cases, one of which you have no right, 
no concern with ; and the other is founded in direct injustice. 

You complain that Congress has passed a law to divide the 
country into two territories. It is not improper to inform you, 
that after the revolutionary war ended, Congress divided the 
territory acquired by that war into ten territories ; each of 
which were to be erected into a constitutional state, when it 
arrived at a certain population mentioned in the act ; and, in 
the mean time, an officer appointed by the President, as the 
Governor of Louisiana now is, presided, as Governor of the 
Western Territory, over all such parts as have not arrived at 
the maturity of statehood. Louisiana will require to be divided 
into twelve states or more; but this is a matter that belongs to 
the purchaser of the territory of Louisiana, and with which 
the inhabitants of the town of New-Orleans have no right to 
interfere ; and beside this, it is probable that the inhabitants ot 
the other territory would choose to be independent of New- 
Orleans. They might apprehend, that on some speculating 
pretence, their produce might be put in requisition, and a 
maximum price put on it; a thing not uncommon in a French 
government ; as a general rule, without refining upon senti- 
ment, one may put confidence in the justice of those who have 
no inducement to do us injustice ; and this is the case Congress 
stands in with respect to both territories, and to all other divi- 
sions that may be laid out, and to all inhabitants and settlers, 
of whatever nation they may be. 

There can be no such thing as what the memorial speaks of, 
that is, of a Governor appointed by the President, who may 
have no interest in the welfare of Louisiana. He must, from 
the nature of the case, havo more interest in it than any other 



43$ TO THE FRENCH INHABITANTS OP LOUISIANA. 

person can have. He is entrusted with the care of an exten- 
sive tract of country, now the property of the United States 
by purchase. The value of those lands will depend on the in- 
creasing prosperity of Louisiana, its agriculture, commerce, 
and population. You have only a local and partial interest in 
the town of New-Orleans, or its vicinity ; and if, in conse- 
quence of exploring the country, new seats of commerce should 
offer, his general interest would lead him to open them, and 
your partial interest to shut them up. 

There is probably some justice in your remark, as it applies 
to the governments under which you formerly lived. Such 
governments always look with jealousy, and an apprehension 
of revolt, on colonies increasing in prosperity and population, 
and they send governors to keep them down. But when you 
argue from the conduct of governments distant and despotic, 
to that of domestic and free government, it shows you do not 
understand the principles and interest of a republic, and to put 
you right is friendship ; we have had experience, and you 
have not. 

The other case to which I alluded, aa being founded in direct 
injustice, is that in which you petition for poxct r, under the 
name of rights, to import and enslare Africans'! 

Dare you put up a prt/'t ion to Heaven for such a power, 
without fearing to be struck from the earth hy its justid 

Why, then, do you ask it >f man against man t 

Do you icant to renew in Louisiana the horrors of Do- 
mingo? 

COMMON SENSE. 

Sept. 22, 1804. 






TO THE CITIZENS OF PENNSYLVANIA, 

ON THE 

PROPOSAL FOR CALLING A CONVENTION. 



As I resided in the capital of your state (Philadelphia,) in 
the time that tried men's souls, and all my political writings, 
during the revolutionary war, were written in that city, it 
seems natural for me to look back to the place of my political 
and literary birth, and feel an interest for its happiness. Re- 
moved as I now am from the place, and detached from every 
thing of personal party, I address this token to you on the 
ground of principle, and in remembrance of former times and 
friendships. 

The subject now before you, is the call of a convention, to 
examine, and, if necessary, to reform the constitution of the 
state, or to speak in the correct language of constitutional 
order, to propose written articles of reform to be accepted or 
rejected by the people, by vote, in the room of those now ex- 
isting, that shall be judged improper or defective. There can- 
not be, on the ground of reason, any objection to this ; because 
if no reform or alteration is necessary, the sense of the country 
will permit none to be made; and, if necessary, it will be 
made because it ought to be made. Until, therefore, the sense 
of the country can be collected, and made known by a conven- 
tion elected for that purpose, all opposition to the call of a 
convention, not only passes for nothing, but serves to create a 
suspicion that the opposers are conscious that the constitution 
will not bear an examination. 

The constitution formed by the Convention of 1776, of 
which Benjamin Franklin (the greatest and most useful man 
America has yet produced,) was president, had many good 
points in it, which were overthrown by the Convention of 1790. 



440 TO THE CITIZENS OF PENNSYLVANIA, 

under the pretence of making the constitution conformable to 
that of the United States ; as if the forms and periods of elec- 
tion for a territory, extensive as that of the United States is, 
could become a rule for a ue. 

The principal detect in the constitution of 1776, was, that 
it was subject, in practice, to too much precipitancy, but the 
ground work of that constitution was good. The present 
constitution appears to me to be clogged with inconsistencies 
of a hazardous tendem remedy against a pre- 

cipitancy that might not happen. Investing any individual, by 
whatever name or official title he may be called, with a nega- 
tive over the formation of the laws, is copied from the English 
rnment, without ever perceiving the inconsistency and 
absurdity of it, when applied to the representative system, or 
understanding the origin of it in England. 

The present form of government in England, and all those 
tilings called prero t the crown, of which this negative 

power i iblished by conquest, not by compact 

Their origin was the conquest of England by the Normans, 
under William of Normandy, Burnamed the Conqueror, in 10bT>, 
and i 1 "I i:- U i - ii^ date from him. lie is 

the first of the list. There i^ no historical certainty of the 

time when parliament . hut he tin- time when it may, 

the) ; what are called grants or charters from the Nor- 

man Con . to certain towns, and to 

count lect members to meet and Berve in parliament,* 

subject to : [«>m still continues with a 

md calling the parliament my parliament ; thai 

! originating from his authority, and over whicli 

he holds control in right of himself, derived from that con- 
It is from this assumed right, derived from conquest, 

and nut from any constitutional right by compact, that kin 

ud hold re over the formation of the laws; and 

the purpose of preventing any being enacted 

that might e, invade, or in any way affect or diminish 

what tiny claim to be their hereditary or family rights and pre- 

* l' iFi i word, broughi Into England by the Normans. 

It ceiii j —to speak. 



ON THE PROPOSAL FOR CALLING A CONVENTION. 441 

rogatives, derived originally from the conquest of the country.* 
This is the origin of the King of England's negative e Jt is a 
badge of disgrace which his parliaments are obliged to wear, 
and to which they are abject enough to submit. 

But what has this case to do with a legislature chosen by 
freemen, on their own authority, in right of themselves ? Or 
in what manner does a person styled governor or chief magis- 
trate resemble a conqueror subjugating a country, as William 
of Normandy subjugated England, and saying to it, you shall 
have no laws but what I please ? The negativing power in a 
country like America, is of that kind, that a wise man would 
not choose to be embarrassed with it, and a man fond of using 
it will be overthrown by it. It is not difficult to see that when 
Mr. M'Kean negatived the Arbitration Act, he was induced to 
it as a lawyer, for the benefit of the profession, and not as a 
magistrate, for the benefit of the people ; for it is the office of 
a chief magistrate to compose differences and prevent law-, 
suits. If the people choose to have arbitration instead of law-, 
suits, why should they not have them? It is a matter that con- 
cerns them as individuals, and not as a state or community, and 
is not a proper case for -a governor to interfere in, for it is not 
a state or government concern ; nor does it concern the peace 
thereof, otherwise than to make it more peaceable by making 
it less contentious. 

This negativing power in the hands of an individual ought 
to be constitutionally abolished. It is a dangerous power. 
There is no prescribing rules for the use of it. It is discre- 
tionary and arbitrary ; and the will and temper of the person 
at any time possessing it, is its only rule, 

There must have been great want of reflection in the con- 
vention that admitted it into the constitution. Would that 
convention have put the constitution it had formed (whether 
good or bad) in the power of any individual to negative? It 
would not. It would have treated such a proposal with dis- 

* When a king of England (for they are not an English race of kings) 
negatives an act passed by the parliament, he does it in the Norman or 
French language, which was the language of the conquest, the literal 
translation of which is, the king will advise himself of it. It is the only 
instance of a king of England speaking French in parliament; and shows 
the origin of the negative. 

VOL, I. E$ 



442 TO THE CITIZENS OF PENNSYLVANIA, 

dain. Why then did it put the legislatures thereafter to be 
chosen, and all the laws, in that predicament ? Had that con- 
vention, or the law members thereof, known the origin of the 
negativing power used by kings of England, from whence they 
copied it, they must have seen the inconsistency of introducing 
it into an American constitution. We are not a conquered 
people; we know no conqueror; and the negativing power 
used by kings in England is for the defence of the personal and 
family prerogatives of the successors of the conqueror against 
the parliament and the people. What is all this to us ? We 
know no prerogatives but what belong to the sovereignty of 
ourselves. 

At the time this constitution was formed, there was a great 
departure from the principles of the revolution, among those 
who then assumed the lead, and the country was grossly im- 
posed upon. This accounts for some inconsistencies that are 
to be found in the present constitution, among which is the 
negativing power inconsistently copied from England. While 
the exercise of the power over the state remained dormant, it 
remained unnoticed; but the instant it began to be active it 
began to alarm ; and the exercise of it against the rights of the 
people to settle their private pecuniary differences by the 
peaceable mode of arbitration, without the interference of law- 
yers, and the expense and tediousness of courts of law, has 
brought its existence to a crisis. 

Arbitration is of more importance to society than courts of 
law, and ought to have precedence of them in all cases of pecu- 
niary concerns between individuals or parties of them. Who 
are better qualified than merchants to settle disputes between 
merchants, or who better than farmers to settle disputes be- 
tween farmers ? And the same for every other description of 
men. What do lawyers or courts of law know of these mat- 
ters? They devote themselves to forms rather than to princi- 
ples, and the merits of the case become obscure and lost in a 
labyrinth of verbal perplexities. We do not hear of lawyers 
going to law with each other, though they could do it cheaper 
than other people, which shows they have no opinion of it for 
themselves. 

The principle and rule of arbitration ought to be conslitu- 






ON THE PROPOSAL FOR CALLING A CONVENTION. 443 

tionally established. The honest sense of a country collected 
in convention will find out how to do this without the inter- 
ference of lawyers, who may be hired to advocate any side of 
any cause ; for the case is, the practice of the bar is become a 
species of prostitution that ought to be controlled. It lives by 
encouraging the injustice it pretends to redress. 

Courts in which law is practised are of two kinds. The one 
for criminal cases, the other for Civil cases, or cases between 
individuals respecting property of any kind, or the value there- 
of. I know not what may be the numerical proportion of these 
two classes of cases to each other; but that the civil cases are 
far more numerous than the criminal cases, I make no doubt of. 
Whether they be ten, twenty, thirty, or forty to one, or more, 
I leave to those who live in the state, or in the several coun- 
ties thereof, to determine. 

But be the proportion what it may, the expense to the public 
of supporting a judiciary for both will be, in some relative de- 
gree, according to the number of cases the one bears to the 
other ; yet it is only one of them that the public, as a public, 
have any concern with. 

The criminal cases, being breaches of the peace, are conse- 
quently under the cognizance of the government of the state, 
and the expense of supporting the courts thereof belong to the 
public, because the preservation of the peace is a public con- 
cern. 

But civil cases, that is, cases of private property between 
individuals, belong wholly to the individuals themselves; and 
all that government has consistently to do in the matter, is to 
establish the process by which the parties concerned shall pro- 
ceed and bring the matter to decision themselves, by referring 
it. to impartial and judicious men of the neighbourhood, of their 
own choosing. This is by far the most convenient, as to time 
and place, and the cheapest method to them ; for it is bringing 
justice home to their own doors, without the chicanery of law 
and lawyers. Every case ought to be determined on its own 
merits, without the farce of what are called precedents, or 
reports of cases ; because, in the first place, it often happens 
that the decision upon the case brought as a precedent is bad, 
and ought to be shunned instead of imitated; and, in the second 



444 TO THE CITIZENS OF PENNSYLVANIA* 

place, because there are no two cases perfectly alike in all their 
circumstances, and therefore the one cannot become a rule of 
decision for the other. It is justice and good judgment that 
preside by right in a court of arbitration. It is forms, quoted 
precedents, and contrivances for delay and expense to the par- 
ties, that govern the proceedings of a court of law. 

By establishing arbitrations in the room of courts of law for 
the adjustment of private cases* the public will be eased of a 
great part of the expense of the present judiciary establish- 
ment; for certainly such a host of judges, associate judges, 
presidents of circuits, clerks, and criers of courts, as are at pre- 
sent supported at the public expense, will not then be neces- 
sary. There are, perhaps, more of them than there are crimi- 
nals to try in the space of a year. Arbitration will lessen the 
sphere of patronage, and it is not improbable that this was 
one of the private reasons for negativing the arbitration act ; 
but public economy, and the convenience and e&se of the indU 
viditals^ ought to have outweighed all sUch considerations. 
The present administration of the United States lias struck off 
a long list of useless officers, and economised the public expend 
diture, and it is better to make a precedent of this, than to 
imitate its forms and long periods of election, which require 
reform themselves. 

A great part of the people of Pennsylvania make a principle 
of not going to law, and others avoid it from prudential rea- 
sons ; yet all those fteople arc taxed to support a judiciary to 
which they never resort, which is as inconsistent and unjust as 
it is in England to make the Quakers pay tvthes to support the 
Episcopal church. Arbitration will put an end to this impo-' 
sition 

Another complaint against the constitution of Pennsylvania, 
is the great quantity of patronage annexed to the ollice of go* 
Vernor. 

Patronage has a natural tendency to increase the public ex- 
pense, by the temptation it leads to (useless in the hands of a 
wise man like Franklin) multiply offices within the gift or ap- 
pointment of that patronage. John Adams, in his administra- 
tion, went upon the plan of increasing offices and officers. He 
expected by thus increasing his patronage, and making nurae* 



ON THE PROPOSAL FOR CALLING A CONVENTION 445 

rous appointments, that he should attach a numerous train of 
adherents to him who would support his measures and his 
future election. He copied this from the corrupt system of 
England; and he closed his midnight labours by appointing 
sixteen new unnecessary judges, at an expense to the public of 
thirty-two thousand dollars annually. John counted only on 
one side of the case. He forgot that where there was one 
man to be benefited by an appointment, that all the rest had to 
pay the cost of it ; and that by attaching the one to him by 
patronage, he run the risk of losing the many by disgust ; and 
such was the consequence ; and such will ever be the conse- 
quence in a free country, where men reason for themselves and 
from themselves, and not from the dictates of others. 

The less quantity of patronage a man is incumbered with, 
the safer he stands. He cannot please every body by the use 
of it; and he will have to refuse, and consequently to displease, 
a greater number than he can please. Mr. Jefferson gained 
more friends by dismissing a long train of officers, than John 
Adams did by appointing them. Like a wise man, Mr. Jeffer- 
son dismantled himself of patronage. 

The constitution of New-York, though like all the rest it 
has its defects, arising from want of experience in the repre- 
sentative system of government at the time it was formed, has 
provided much better, in this case, than the constitution of 
Pennsylvania has done. The appointments in New-York are 
made by a council of appointment, composed of the governor 
and a certain number of members of the Senatej taken from dif- 
ferent parts of the state. By this means they have among them 
a personal knowledge of whoever they appoint. The governor 
has one vote, but no negative. I do not hear complaints of the 
abuse of this kind of patronage. 

The constitution of Pennsylvania, instead of being an im- 
provement in the representative system of government, is a 
departure from the principles of it. It is a copy in miniature 
of the government of England, established at the conquest 
of that country by William of Normandy. I have shown 
this in part in the case of the king's negative, and I shall 
show it more fully as I go on. This brings me to speak of the 
senate. 



4-16 TO THE CITIZENS OF PENNSYLVANIA, 

The complaint respecting the senate is the length of its 
duration, being four years. The sage Franklin has said, 
"Where annual election ends, tyranny begins;" and no man was 
a better judge of human nature than Franklin, nor has any man in 
our time exceeded him in the principles of honour and honesty. 

When a man ceases to be accountable to those who elected 
him, and with whose public affairs he is entrusted, he ceases 
to be their representative, and is put in a condition of being 
their despot. He becomes the representative of nobody but 
himself. I am elected, says he, for four years ; you cannot 
turn me out, neither am I responsible to you in the mean time. 
All that you have to do with me is to pay me. 

The conduct of the Pennsylvania senate, in 1S00, respecting 
the choice of electors for the presidency of the United States, 
shows the impropriety and danger of such an establishment. 
The manner of choosing electors ought to be fixed in the con- 
stitution, and not be left to the caprice of contention. It is a 
matter equally M important, and concerns the rights and inte- 
rs -i- of the people as much, as the election of members for the 
state legislature, and in some instances lr.uch more. By the 
Conduct of the senate at that time, the people were deprived of 
their riirht of sutl*ra<:e, ami the state lofll Us consequence in the 
union. It had hut one vote. The other fourteen were paired 

off by compromise. Seven ami seven. If the people had 

chosen the electors, which they had a rijjht to do, for the 
electors were to represent them and not to represent the 
senate, the state would have had fifteen votes which would 
have counted. 

The senate is an imitation of what is called the House of 
Lords in England, and which Chesterfield, who was a member 
of it, and therefore knew it, calls "the hospital of incurables" 
The senate in Pennsylvania is not quite an hospital of incura- 
bles, but it took almost four years to bring it to a state of con- 
valescence. 

Ik-fore we imitate any thing, we ought to examine whether 
it be worth imitating, and had this been done by the convention 
at that time, they would have seen that the model from which 
their mimic imitation was made, was no better than unprofitable 
and disgraceful lumber. 



ON THE PROPOSAL FOR CALLING A CONVENTION. 447 

There was no such thing in England as what is called the 
House of Lords, until the conquest of that country by the 
Normans, under William the Conqueror, and like the king's 
negative over the laws, it is a badge of disgrace upon the coun- 
try; for it is the effect and evidence of its having been reduced 
to unconditional submission. 

William, having made the conquest, dispossessed the owners 
of their lands, and divided those lands among the chiefs of the 
plundering army he brought with him, and from hence arose 
what is called the House of Lords. Daniel de Foe, in his 
historical satire, entitled, " The True-born Englishman,'''' has 
very concisely given the origin and character of this house, as 
follows : 

The great invading Norman let them know 
What conquerors, in after times, might do; 
To every musketeer he brought to town, 
He gave the lands that never were his own- 
He cantoned out the country to his men, 
And every soldier was a denizen ; 
No parliament his army could disband, 
He raised no money, for he paid in land ; 
The rascals, thus enriched, he called them Lords, 
To please their upstart pride with new made words, 
And domesday Book his tyranny records; 
Some show the sword, the bow, and some the spear, 
Which their great ancestor, forsooth, did wear; 
But who the hero was, no man can tell, 
Whether a colonel or a corporal ; 
The silent record blushes to reveal 
Their undescended dark original; 
Great ancestors of yesterday, they show 
And Lords, whose fathers were — the Lord knows who! 

This is the disgraceful origin of what is called the House of 
Lords in England, and it still retains some tokens of the plun- 
dering baseness of its origin. The swindler Dundas was lately 
made a lord, and is now called noble lord ! Why do they not 
give him his proper title, and call him noble swindler ! for he 
swindled by wholesale. But it is probable he will escape 
punishment ; for Blackstone, in his commentary on the laws, 
recites, an act of parliament, passed in 1550, and not since 



448 TO THE CITIZENS OF PENNSYLVANIA, 

repealed, that extends what is called the benefit of clergy, that 
is, exemption from punishment for all clerical offences, to al] 
lords and peers of the realm who could not read, as well as 
those who could, and also for " the crimes of house-breakings 
highway -robbing, horse-stealing, and robbing of churches." 
This is consistent with the original establishment of the House 
of Lords, for it was originally composed of robbers. This is 
aristocracy. This is one of the pillars of John Adams' " stu- 
pendous fabric of human invention." A privilege for house- 
breaking, highway-robbing, horse-stealing, and robbing of 
churches ! John Adams knew but little of the origin and prac- 
tice of the government of England. As to constitution, it has 
none. 

The Pennsylvania convention of 1776, copied nothing from 
the English government. It formed a constitution on the basis 
of honesty. The defect, as I have already said, of that con- 
stitution, was the precipitancy to which the legislatures might 
be subject in enacting laws. All the members of that legisla- 
ture, established by that constitution, sat in one chamber, and 
debated in one body, and thus subjected them to precipitancy. 
But this precipitancy was provided against, but not effectually. 
The constitution ordered that the laws, before being finally 
enacted, should be published for public consideration. But as 
no given time was fixed for that consideration, nor any means 
for collecting its effects, nor were there then any public news? 
papers in the state but what were printed in Philadelphia, the 
provision did not reach the intention of it, and thus a good and 
wise intention sunk into mere form, which is generally the 
case when the means are not adequate to the end. 

The ground work, however, of that constitution was good, 
and deserves to be resorted to. Every thing that Franklin 
was concerned in producing, merits attention. He was the 
wise and benevolent friend of man. Riches and honours made 
no alteration in his principles or his manners. 

The constitution of X776 was conformable to the Declara- 
tion of Independence and the Declaration of Rights, which 
the present constitution is not ; for it makes artificial distinc- 
tions among men in the right of suffrage, which the principles 
of equity know nothing of; neither is it consistent with sound 



ON THE PROPOSAL FOR CALLING A CONVENTION. 449 

policy. We every day see the rich becoming poor, and those 
who were poor before becoming rich. Riches, therefore, hav- 
ing no stability, cannot and ought not to be made a criterion of 
right. Man is man in every condition of life, and the varieties 
of fortune and misfortune are open to all. 

Had the number of representatives in the legislature, esta- 
blished by that constitution, been increased, and instead of 
their sitting together in one chamber, and debating and voting 
all at one time, to have divided them by lot into two equal 
parts, and to have sat in separate chambers, the advantage would 
have been, that one half by not being entangled in the first de- 
bate, nor having committed itself by voting, would be silently 
possessed of the arguments, for and against, of the former 
part, and be in a calm condition to review the whole. And 
instead of one chamber, or one house, or by whatever name 
they may be called, negativing the vote of the other, which is 
now the case, and which admits of inconsistencies, even to ab- 
surdities, to have added the votes of both chambers together, 
and the majority of the whole to be the final decision. There 
would be reason in this, but there is none in the present mode. 
The instance that occurred in the Pennsylvania senate, in the 
year 1800, on the bill for choosing electors, where a small ma- 
jority in that house controlled and negatived a large majority 
in the other house, shows the absurdity of such a division of 
legislative power. 

To know if any theory or position be true or rational, in 
practice, the method is, to carry it to its greatest extent ; if it 
be not true upon the whole, or be absurd, it is so in all its parts, 
however small. For instance, 

If one house consists of two hundred members and the other 
fifty, which is about the proportion they are in some of the 
states, and if a proposed law be carried on the affirmative in 
the larger house with only one dissenting voice, and be nega* 
tived in the smaller house by a majority of one, the event will 
be, that twenty-seven control and govern two hundred and 
twenty-three, which is too absurd even for argument, and to- 
tally inconsistent with the principles of representative govern- 
ment, which know no difference in the value and importance 
of its members but what arises from their virtues and talents, 

vol. i> 97 



450 TO THE CITIZENS OF PENNSYLVANIA, 

and not at all from the name of the house or chamber where 
they sit in. 

Ki the practice of a smaller number negativing a greater is 
not founded in reason, we must look for its origin in some 
other cause. 

The Americans have Copied it from England, and it was 
brought into England by the Norman Conqueror, and U 
from the anci< I It practice .of which 

they (thai is Roman Catholic 

and the tiers ctat, 

or third I lulled all \\ 1. not o^the two 

form I which in I died the c 

n Inch they arc re, 
is from them ( ae« 

The case frith the Conqu -. that in order to i 

id hold the country in 
subjection, h< >ng the chiefs o-my, 

i he dubbed with the title 
I Be being 'it on the 

Conqueror, I u iili him, 1>. came the 

d 

prero n the house called the 

< /' - . '.in l>\ L'r.mt- and charters 

from • ( 

I Commons, though smaller in 

nnml . and 

from I 

should w i 

R in \ i if the 

high< snd of U 

<iw ii ] H i - lit. Whj 

I to the fcrior thii 

By t! Revolution ire prere pot In a condition ^i 

thinking originallj 

• The henever flip Si 

tinned nntil the ilution. It wo« • 

nig by a m f numbers. 



t>5* TUB FROrOdAL FOR CALLING A CONVENTION. 451 

any thing to us but instances of tyranny and antiquated absur- 
dities. We have copied some of them, and experienced the 
folly of them. 

Another subject of complaint in Pennsylvania is the judi- 
ciary, and this appears to require a thorough reform. Arbi- 
tration will of itself reform a great part, but much will remain 
to require amendment. 

The courts of law still continue to go on, as to practice, in 
the same manner as when the state was a British colony. They 
have not yet arrived at the dignity of independence. They 
hobble along by the stilts and crutches of English and antiquated 
precedents. Their pleadings are made up of cases and reports 
from English law books ; many of which are tyrannical, and 
all of them are now foreign to us. Our courts require to be 
domesticated, for as they are at present conducted, they are a 
dishonour to the national sovcreigntj\ Every case in America 
ought to be determined on its own merits, according to Ameri- 
can laws, and all reference to foreign adjudications prohibited. 
The introduction of them into American courts serves only to 
waste time, embarrass causes, and perplex juries. This reform 
alone will reduce cases to a narrow compass easily understood. 

The terms used in courts of law, in sheriffs' sales, and on 
Several other occasions, in writs, and other legal proceedings, 
require reform. Many of those terms are Latin, and others 
French. The Latin terms were brought into Britain by the 
Romans, who spoke Latin, and who continued in Britain be- 
tween four and five hundred years, from the first invasion of it 
by Julius Caesar, fifty-two years before the Christian era. The 
French terms were brought by the Normans when they con- 
quered England in 1088, as I have before shown, and whose 
language was French. 

These terms being still used in English law courts, show 
the origin of those courts, and are evidence of the country 
having been under foreign jurisdiction. But they serve to 
mystify, by not being generally understood, and therefore they 
serve the purpose of what is called law, whose business is to 
perplex ; and the courts in England put up with the disgrace 
of recording foreign jurisdiction and foreign conquest, for the 
sake of using terms which the clients and the public do not 



452 TO THE CITIZENS OF PENNSYLVANIA, 

understand, and from thence to create the false belief that law 
is. a learned science, and lawyers are learned men. The En- 
glish pleaders, in order to keep up the farce of the profession, 
always compliment each other, though in contradiction, with 
the title of ray learned br other. Two farmers or two mer- 
chants will settle cases by arbitration, when lawyers cannot 
settle by law. Where then is the learning of the law, or what 
is it good for ? 

It is here necessary to distinguish between lawyer's law, 
and legislative law. Legislative law is the law of the land, 
enacted by our own legislators, chosen by the people for that 
purpose. Lawyer's law is a mass of opinions and decisions, 
many of them contradictory to each other, which courts and 
lawyers have instituted themselves, and is chiefly made up 
of law reports of cases taken from English law books. The 
case of every man ought to be tried by the laws of his own 
country, which he knows, and not by opinions and authorities 
from other countries, of which he may know nothing. A law- 
yer, in pleading, will talk several hours about law, but it is 
lawyer's law, and not legislative law, that he means. 

The whole of the judiciary needs reform. It is very loosely 
appointed in most of the states, and also in the general govern- 
ment. The case, I suppose, has been, that the judiciary 
department in a constitution has been left to the lawyers, who 
might be in a convention, to form, and they have taken care to 
leave it loose. To say, that a judge shall hold his office during 
good behaviour, is saying nothing ; for the term, good behaviour, 
has neither a legal nor a moral definition. In the common 
acceptation of the term, it refers rather to a style of manners 
than to principles, and may be applied to signify different and 
contradictory things. A child of good behaviour, a judge of 
good behaviour, a soldier of good behaviour in the field, and a 
dancing-master of good behaviour in his school, cannot be the 
same good behaviour. What then is the good behaviour of a 
judge ? 

Many circumstances in the conduct and character of a man 
may render him unfit to hold the office of a judge, yet not 
amount to cause of impeachment, which always supposes the 
commission of some known crime. Judges ought to be held 



ON THE PROPOSAL FOR CALLING A CONVENTION. 453 

to their duty by continual responsibility, instead of which the 
constitution releases them from all responsibility, except by 
impeachment, from which, by the loose, undefined establish* 
ment of the judiciary, there is always a hole to creep out. In 
annual elections for legislators, every legislator is responsible 
every year, and no good reason can be given why those en- 
trusted with the execution of the laws should not be as respon- 
sible, at stated periods, as those entrusted with the power of 
enacting them. 

Releasing the judges from responsibility, is in imitation of 
an act of the English parliament, for rendering the judges so far 
independent of what is called the crown, as not to be remova- 
ble by it. The case is, that judges in England are appointed 
by the crown, and are paid out of the king's civil list, as being 
his representatives when sitting in court; and in all prosecu- 
tions for treason and criminal offences, the king is the prose- 
cutor. It was therefore reasonable that the judge, before 
whom a man was to be tried, should not be dependent, for the 
tenure of his office, on the will of the prosecutor. But this is 
no reason that in a government founded on the representative 
system, a judge should not be responsible, and also removable 
by some constitutional mode, without the tedious and expen- 
sive formality of impeachment. We remove or turn out pre- 
sidents, governors, senators, and representatives, without this 
formality. Why then are judges, who are generally lawyers, 
privileged with duration ? It is, I suppose, because lawyers 
have had the formation of the judiciary part of the consti- 
tution. 

The term, " contempt of court," which has caused some agi- 
tation in Pennsylvania, is also copied from England ; and in 
that country it means contempt of the king's authority or pre- 
rogative in court, because the judges appear there as his re- 
presentatives, and are styled in their commissions, when they 
open a court, " his majesty the king's justices." 

This now undefined thing, called contempt of court, is de- 
rived from the Norman conquest of England, as is shown by 
the French words used in England, with which proclamation 
for silence, "on pain of imprisonment," begins, " Oyez, Oyez, 



454 tO THE CITIZENS OF PENNSYLVANIA* 

Oyez."* This shows it to be of Norman origin. It is, how- 
ever, a species of despotism ; for contempt of court is now 
any thing a court imperiously pleases to call so, and then it 
inflicts punishment as by prerogative without trial, as in Pass- 
more's case, which has a good deal agitated the public mind. 
This practice requires to be constitutionally regulated, but not 
by lawyers. 

Much yet remains to be done in the improvement of con- 
stitutions. The Pennsylvania convention, when it meets, 
will be possessed of advantages which those that preceded 
it were not. The ensuing convention will have two consti- 
tutions before them ; that of '76, and that of '90, each of 
which continued about fourteen years. I know no material 
objection against the constitution of '76, except, that in prac- 
tice, it might be subject to precipitancy; but this can be 
easily and effectually remedied, as the annexed essay, respect- 
ing " Constitutions, Governments, and Charters," will show. 
But there have been many and great objections and complaints 
against the present constitution and the practice upon it, aris- 
ing from the improper and unequal distribution it makes of 
power. 

The circumstance that occurred in the Pennsylvania senate 
in the year 1800, on the bill passed by the house of represen- 
tatives, for choosing (.lectors, justifies Franklin's opinion, 
which lie g*ve by re-quest of the convention of 1776, of which 
he was president, respecting the propriety or impropriety of 
two houset negativing each other. " It appears to me," said 
he, " like putting one horse before a cart and the other behind 
it, and whipping them both. If the horses arc of equal 
strength, the wheels of the cart, like the wheels of government, 
will stand still ; and if the horses arc strong enough, the cart 
will be torn to pieces." It was only the moderation and good 
sense of the country, which did not engage in the dispute 
raised by the senate, that prevented Pennsylvania from being 
torn to pieces by commotion. 

Inequality of rights has been the cause of all the disturb- 
ances, insurrections, and civil wars, that ever happened in any 

♦ Hear ye, hear ye, hear ye. 



ON THE PROPOSAL FOR CALLINO A CONVENTION. 455 

country, in any age of mankind. It was the cause of the 
American revolution, when the English parliament sat itself up 
to bind America in all cases whatsoever, and to reduce her to 
unconditional submission. It was the cause of the French re- 
volution ; and also of the civil wars in England, in the time 
of Charles and Cromwell, when the House of Commons voted 
the House of Lords useless. 

The fundamental principle in representative government, is, 
that the majority governs ; and as it will be always happen- 
ing that a man may be in the minority on one question, and in 
the majority on another, he obeys by the same principle that 
he rules. But when there are two houses of unequal numbers, 
and the smaller number negativing the greater, it is the mino- 
rity that governs, which is contrary to the principle. This 
was the case in Pennsylvania in 1800. 

America has the high honour and happiness of being the 
first nation that gave to the world the example of forming 
written constitutions, by conventions elected expressly for 
the purpose, and of improving them by the same procedure, 
as time and experience shall show necessary. Government 
in other nations, vainly calling themselves civilized, has been 
established by bloodshed. Not a drop of blood has been 
shed in the United States in consequence of establishing 
constitutions and governments by her own peaceful system. 
The silent vote, or the simple yea or nay, is more powerful 
than the bayonet, and decides the strength of numbers without 
a blow. 

I have now, citizens of Pennsylvania, presented you, in 
good will, with a collection of thoughts and historical refer- 
ences, condensed into a small compass, that they may circu* 
Jate the more conveniently. They are applicable to the sub* 
ject before you, that of calling a convention, in the progress 
and completion of which I wish you success and happiness, 
and the honour of showing a profitable example to the states 
around you, and to the world. 

Yours, in friendship, 

THOMAS PAINE 

New Rochelle* New-York., 
AugusU 1805. 



OF CONSTITUTIONS, GOVERNMENTS, 
AND CHARTERS.* 



The people of Pennsylvania are, at this time, earnestly oc- 
cupied on the subject of calling a convention to revise their 
state constitution, ami there can be but little doubt that | n \ i- 
sion ll iry. It is a constitution, they say. for the emolu- 

ment of lawyers. 

It has happened that the constitution* of all the states were 
formed before any < \ perience had been had on th< -enta- 

DO of government • md it would be ■ miracle in hu- 
man allair<. that mere theory without experience should vtirt 

into perfection at once. I idtotion <<( New-York was 

IT??. I trpied 

and engr os s ed the mind **( the public at thai time, was tin 

VolutioiKiry war, ami tl lishmenl of indc; 

in order t i of ind. 

Congress, it wis j thai the stales fionld 

ititutions, 
ami trust :. The gene- 

ral defect i'i all the constitution! i-. thai thej ire modelled 

much after th< if it < m be < all. m, of tin 

irl i - ri L r o\ a riimeut. which in practice i* the most COITU] 

in existence, t >r it li corruptic 

Am idea also generally prevailed at that time, of kee] 
w hat w ere called the b i ! tin judicial 

rs distinct and separated from each otrn r. Imi this 
whether corn el at not. ii alwaj i contradicted in . for 

where the eon srnor, <>r executh quired to 

an net before it c.-m become i law, or where he can b\ hi 
re prevent an act of the legislature becoming a law, be k 

• This excellent article ii from the celebrated pen of M 

ttham. 



OF CONSTITUTIONS, GOVERNMENTS, AND CHARTERS. 457 

effectually a part of the legislature, and possesses full one half 
of the powers of a whole legislature. 

In this state, (New-York,) this power is vested in a select 
body of men, composed of the executive, by which is to be un- 
derstood the governor, the chancellor, and the judges, and called 
the council of revision. This is certainly better than vesting 
that power in an individual, if it is necessary to invest it any 
where ; but is a direct contradiction to the maxim set up, that 
those powers ought to be kept separate ; for here the execu- 
tive and the judiciary are united into one power, acting legis- 
latively. 

When we see maxims that fail in practice, we ought to go to 
the root, and see if the maxim be true. Now it does not sig- 
nify how many nominal divisions, and sub-divisions, and clas- 
sifications we make, for the fact is, there are but two powers 
in any government, the power of willing or enacting the laws, 
and the power of executing them ; for what is called the 
judiciary is a branch of executive power ; it executes the laws ; 
and what is called the executive is a superintending power to 
see that the laws are executed. 

Errors in theory are, sooner or later, accompanied with er- 
rors in practice ; and this leads me to another part of the sub- 
ject, that of considering a constitution and a government rela- 
tively to each other. 

A constitution is the act of the people in their original cha- 
racter of sovereignty. A government is a creature of the con- 
stitution ; it is produced and brought into existence by it. A 
constitution defines and limits the powers of the government it 
creates. It therefore follows, as a natural and also a logical 
result, that the governmental exercise of any power not author- 
ized by the constitution, is an assumed power, and therefore 
illegal. 

There is no article in the Constitution of this state, nor of 
any of the States, that invests the government in whole or in 
part with the power of granting charters or monopolies of any 
kind ; the spirit of the times was then against all such specu- 
lations ; and therefore the assuming to grant them is unconsti- 
tutional, and when obtained by bribery and corruption is cri- 
minal. It is also contrary to the intention and principle of 
Vol. i. 58 



45S OF C ONsTITlTIONS, COVERXMENTS, AND C1URTERI. 

annual elections. Legislatures are elected annually, not only 
for the purpOi ing the people, in their eh dive cha- 

r, the opportunity of Bbowing their approbation o( I 
who fa i them, and rejecting I 

who ha\r acted wrong; bu the parj correcting 

tlie wrong (where any wron former l< 

lature. But the very intent. ind princi uiual 

lion would Luring the 

of itfl authority, had the pou CI to pll 

attempted t<> be done in the 

ters. Of what use is it t<> baring i 

the authority of lho*e 
did it .' Thus much i<«r ihingi thi g« I now 

thing* that an 
Ex] 'iiiilly ari 

dally in i initry. thai will require 

r differently constituted t«» th lion ; 

and tl an article in a constitution, 

fining boa 

m bich I i 
-till k<« ■;■ il\ u i thin the lin 

annual el. m appoiutmei 

• ! i ti • *n:il • i cample, 

l of ■ diffi nary 

lands, 
lorporation, public th indh iduali 

panics beyond i eertaio amount, shall !><• \ m one le- 

and published in tin form of a bill, with tin 

and in t : 
o np b| ; thai is, tl i i 

. «m nil SUCfa 

me of bi the lime of enact- 
ing it Into a permai 

It i« the repiditj « ttk i pelf inti . or 

■ fraud on the jmiI.I'k- prop be carried through within 

Ion, and before the people can he 

apprised <>r It, th I \ that <•» precaution of 

. unlesa ■ better can he derised, «hmild he mn.!. 



OF CONSTITUTIONS, GOVERNMENTS, AND CHARTERS. 459 

article of the constitution. Had such an article been origi- 
nally in the constitution, the bribery and corruption employed 
to seduce and manage the members of the late legislature in 
the affair of the Merchants* Bank, could not have taken place. 
It would not have been worth while to bribe men to do what 
they had not the power of doing. That legislature could only 
have proposed, but not have enacted the law; and the election 
then ensuing would, by discarding the proposers, have uega- 
tived the proposal without any further trouble. 

This method has the appearance of doubling the value and 
importance of annual elections. It is only by means of elec- 
tions, that the mind of the public can be collected to a point on 
any important subject ; and as it is always the interest of a much 
greater number of people in a country, to have a thing right 
than to have it wrong, the public sentiment is always worth 
attending to. It may sometimes err, but never intentionally, 
and never long. The experiment of the Merchants' Bank 

shows it is possible to bribe a small body of men, but it is al- 
ways impossible to bribe a whole nation ; and therefore in all 

legislative matters that by requiring permanency differ from 

arts of ordinary legislation, which are alterable or repealable at 
all times, it is safest that they pass through two legislatures, and 
a general election intervene between. The elections will al- 
waya bring up the mind of the country on any important pro- 
posed bill ; and thus the whole state will be its own council of 
revision. It has already passed its veto on the Merchants' 
Bank bill, notwithstanding the minor council of revision ap- 
proved it. 

COMMON SENSE. 
New Rochelle, June 21, 1805. 



R E M A R K S 

ON THE POLITICAL AND MILITARY AFFAIRS 
OF EURO!' 



The battles which derided the fate of the I\ i Pi 

and ; rnment, heuan on the 9th r. and • 

on the 1 lth of that month ; but the final event, that of the 
overthrow of the R md fifty thou- 

sand men on the 1 lth. vraj not known i: . till the 

or 87th of I ! 

ruesday, 
\ I !e In 

ieh announce 

•• I -* / (A very great concern that ire 

are obliged to check the ph nter- 

m army." 
i lion of the 1 

on thr failure of ; 

wl:i. ! | 

vcrn- London Gazette (the official 

nment) on th( . live 

w of 
' I 
published thai i p the 

i 
hroe n hich ranatli 

l ! 

until an I I little thlM Wt ^liall h.;\r the 

manifesto of I it, and lh( 



REMARKS ON THE AFFAIRS OF EUROPE. 461 

the two with each other, and with suck circumstances as are 
known, which is the only true way of interpreting manifestoes, 
we shall be enabled to form some judgment of the whole. 

But as far as circumstances are already known, Buonaparte 
has done exactly what I would have done myself, with respect 
I mean to the present war, had I been in his place, which, 
thank God, I am not. Why are coalitions continually formed 
and forming against him, against the French nation, and the 
French government ? Or why does the government of England 
oppress and impoverish the people it governs, by loading them 
with the burdensome expense of paying those coalitions? It is 
they who pay all, and I pity them sincerely. 

The opposers of Buonaparte say, "he is a usurper.'' 1 The 
case is, that all the kings in Europe are usurpers, and as to 
hereditary government, it is ■ succession of usurpers. The 
present hereditary government of England is derived from the 
usurper, William of Normandy, who conquered England and 
Usurped the government If there is any man amongst them 
all that is less usurper than the rest, it is Buonaparte; for he 
was elected bj the French nation to the rank and title he now 
holds. The others assumed it by the sword, or succeeded in 
consequence of the first usurpation. 

As to the coalitions against France, it is impossible iu the 
nature of things they can succeed, while the French govern- 
ment conducts itself with the energy and activity it now does. 
The English government may amuse itself with forming coa- 
litions as long and as often as it pleases, but they will all come 
to the same fatal end. For, in the first place, there is no sin- 
gle power on the continent of Europe that is able to stand 
against France until a coalition army, coming in detachments 
from different and distant parts of Europe, can be collected and 
formed. And, in the second place, those distant detachments 
of an intended coalition army cannot be put in motion for the 
purpose of assembling somewhere in Germany without its be- 
ing known by the French government. The case, therefore, 
will always be, that as soon as the French government knows 
that those distant parts are in motion, the French army, with 
Buonaparte at its head, will march and attack the first part of 



462 REMARKS ON THE AFFAIRS OF EUROPE. 

the coalition army he can conic \ip with, ami overthrow it. 
Last year that part was Austria. This year it i> i The 

English government may vote coalition armies in the cabinet, 
but Buonaparte can always prevent them in the field. Tins is 
a matter so very obvious to any man who know- ie of 

Europe, and can calculate the probability of events, that a 
cabinet must be sunk in total ignorance and stupidity not to 
see it; and thus it i- that the Urea of unoffending men are 
sported away. 

is to the late negociation for peace between England and 
France, I view it as a trick of war on both sides, and the con 
which could outwit the oilier. The British man 

says, " The negociati mated in \v the 

h government of treating for peace on the basis of 
tual posse.:sii//t." Well ! br it so ; it makes the matter neither 
better nor worse ; foi the feci is though the British mam 

nothing about it, that the IJriti-h cabinet had planned, and 
forming ' lion arm) of F • and 

that offer w , and the 

French government had ki isible 

to keep such thin F i nch goi em 

therefore, hai ing at l< aat, a I 

this coalition inti to and out 

the whole intrigue, that it might be p 

And on i!i»- othi i the British cabini with the 

offer, i into tin 

slant and to march snd join tin I while the 

iation WSJ going on. 
15 ut tin « ill him, I. 

for them. II<- has outwitted the coalition intriguers, and out- 
generalled the coalition usurpen I fallen King of Prussia 
has to deplore B i the 

In speaking of these circumstances, it ought always to he re- 
membered, that the British government began tin- wi I; had 
concluded a treats of peace with Fi lied the treaty <>f 

Amiens, and - Kurd war again to avoid fulfilling 

the conditions of that I It will not be able to conclude 



REMARKS ON ?HE AFFAIRS OF EUROPE. 463 

another treaty so good as the treaty it has broken, and most 
probably no treaty at all. That government must now abide 
by its fate, for it can raise no more coalitions. There does not 
remain powers on the continent of Europe to form another. 
The last that could be raised has been tried, and has pe- 
rished. 

THOMAS PAINE. 
New-York, Dec. 14, 1806. 



OF THE ENGLISH NAVY. 



The boasted navy of England has been the ruin of Eng- 
land. This may appear strange to a set of stupid Fids, who 
have no more foresight than a mole under ground, or they would 
not abuse France as they do ; but Strange as it may appear, it 
is nevertheless true, and a little reflection on the case will 
show it. 

The expense of that navy 19 ureater than the nation ean 
bear; and the deficiency is continually supplied by ami. 
tion of revenue under the name of loans, till the debt, 

which is the sum total of these anticipations, hai amounted, 

according to the* report of the Chancellor of the Exchequer to 
the English Parliament, the 88th o( last March, to the enor- 
mous sum of f>o:u>\M.oon'. iterring; and the interest of the 
debt at that time wsji ?, 1. ( .KX).000/. sterling 

Whet are called loan-, are no other than creating 1 new 
quantity of stock, and sending it to market to he sold, and then 
laying on new taxes to pay the interest of that new stock. 
The persons called loamrs or subscribers for the loan, con- 
tract with the minister for large wholesale quantities of this 

new stock at SI 1<>\\ a price SJ they can net it, and all the\ 
make by retailing it Is their profit. Thil ruinous system, for 
it li certain ruin In the end. began In the time of William the 

Third, our hundred and eighteen y. 

The expense <>f the English nary thii no by the 

Chancellor of the Exche.pi. r. Iftsl March, if 16,381,0001 

ling, above sixty-eight million dollars. The enormous 

I Of thi^ na\ y. taken on an I 
has run the nation in debt UpWlfds of five millions sterling 

erery year, for the one hundred and eighteen yean lines she 

gystem of what are palled loans began. And it is this annual 
appumulation of more than five million* sterling every yenr, 



OF THE ENGLISH NAVV. 465 

for one hundred and eighteen years, that has carried the En- 
glish national debt to this enormous sum of 603,024,000/. ster- 
ling, which was the amount of the debt, in March last. If it 
be asked, what has this mighty navy done to balance this ex- 
pense? it maybe answered, that, comparatively speaking, it 
has done nothing. It has obtained some victories at sea, 
where nothing was to be gained but blows and broken bones, 
and it has plundered the unarmed vessels of neutral nations ; 
and this makes the short history of its services. 

That the English government does not depend upon the 
navy to prevent Buonaparte making a descent upon England, 
is demonstrated by the expensive preparations that government 
puts itself to by land to repel it. And that the navy contri- 
butes nothing to the protection of commerce is proved by the 
fact, that all the ports on the continent of Europe are shut by 
land against the commerce of England. Of what use, then, is 
the navy that has incurred such an enormous debt, and which 
costs more than sixty-eight millions of dollars annually to 
keep it up, which is three times more than all the gold and sil- 
ver that the mines of Peru and Mexico annually produce. 
Such a navy will always keep a nation poor. No wonder, 
then, that every seventh person in England is a pauper, which 
is the fact. The number of paupers now is 1,200,000. 

Another evil to England attending this navy, besides the 
debt it has incurred, is that it drains the nation of specie. 
More than half the materials that go into the construction of a 
navy in England are procured from Russia and Sweden ; and 
as the exports of English manufactures to those places are but 
small, the balance must be paid in specie. If Buonaparte suc- 
ceed in all his plans, I hope he will put an end to navies for 
the good of the world. 

COMMON SENSE, 

Jan. 7, 1807. 

Vol. i. 69 



REMARKS 

ON GOVERNOR LEWIS'S SPEECH TO THE LEGIS- 
LATURE, AT ALBANY, NEW-YORK. 



Invidious comparisons show want of judgment. But when 
such comparisons arc made on grounds that arc not true, they 
become the more offensii e. 

You say in your speech to the Legislature. " In this gem nil 

dispensation of benefits, our state lias received an unrivalled 
portion. In the course of a feu years she has outstripped her 
confederates in those important sources of national great 
agriculture and commerce, and is not behind the fon 
them in the iraproi i ful and one arts. The first 

of these assertion! ported by ■ comparison «>f tie 

port- from New-York with those of the city o( Philadelphia, 
during the short period of fire or sis years, which affords an 
unerring criterio itahlishes this important (act, that 

whilst each ; rienci d ■ rapid increase, the former, 

\ >rk,) which at the commencement of the period was far 
behind, ha >us to its termination overtaken and gon< 

! of the latter. T<> explain— in the year !**<><», th< 
o Philadelphia stood in the ratio to those of New-1 
of about seven to six. At the close of the > ear lso:>, thot 

New-York WOTC tO those Of Philadelphia as twelve to B< 

Whence, it is natural to inquire, proceeda thos< 
•oltsl Which are the most remarkable, as Philadelphia has 
erred her luperiority in population, having considerably 
more than mir hundred thousand inhabitants, while New-York 

has little more than seventy [thousand.] The question (con- 
tinues tlie (Governor) is one that merits the examination of an 

enlightened mind ; and the solution of it, if I mistake not, [it is 

well the Govt moi put this in] will he found in our spirit- 
ed exertions in the improvement of roads and navigable streams. 



REMARK8 OX GOVERNOR LEWIS'S SPEECH. 467 

These have facilitated an intercourse between our sea-ports 
and interior country. Have taught the forests [the forests then 
are more learned than the forest3 of Pennsylvania] to bow [that 
is, to make a handsome bow, such as the Quaker trees of Penn- 
sylvania cannot make] beneath the labours of the husbandmen. 
Have converted the wilderness [this is an age of strange con- 
versions] into fruitful fields, and made the desert places rejoice 
and blossom like the rose," and sing, I suppose, like the night- 
ingale. Poetical fiction is ridiculous in legislative concerns. 

I now come to remark more seriously on the errors and on 
the invidious comparisons contained in the Governor's speech. 
I shall remark on another part of his speech after I have done 
with this. 

I take the statements as Governor Lewis has stated them, that 
is, that the exports of Philadelphia were gTeater than the ex- 
ports of New- York, in the year 1800; and that, at this time, 
the exports of New- York arc greater than those of Philadel- 
phia. But the cause which tin 4 Governor assigns for this shows 
a great want of knowledge and consequently of judgment. 

He ascribes it, so far as respects New-York, to improve* 
incuts in roads and navigable streams — to making the forests 
bow beneath the labours of the husbandmen — to converting the 
[unconverted] wilderness into fruitful fields, and making the 
desert places rejoice ; and he speaks of those improvements 
as if Pennsylvania had stood still in the mean time, and made 
none ; whereas the fact is not as the Governor states it. Penn- 
sylvania has made more public roads and built more perma- 
nent bridges than any other state has done. And as to the 
improvement of farms, there arc no farmers in the United States 
that excel the German farmers of Pennsylvania. We must 
then seek some other cause than that which the Governor has 
assigned. 

If Governor Lewis had made himself acquainted, in some 
degree, with mercantile affairs, which he ought to have done, 
before he undertook to speak of exports or imports, he would 
have found that the greater part of the exports of New-York 
are not the produce of the state of New-York, and, therefore, 
have a distinct origin from any thing that can arise from inter- 
nal improvements of any kind. For example, the city of New- 



468 REMARKS ON GOVERNOR LEWISES SPEECH. 

York exports great quantities of tobacco, rice, cotton, indigo, 
pitch, tar, turpentine, and rosin, and yet none of those articles 
are the produce of the state of New-York. The case is, that 
the southern states, where those articles are produced, do not 
go much into the carrying trade, and as the port of New-York 
is commodious to the sea, those articles arrive coastways to 
New-York, to be exported from thence to Europe. 

New-York also exports a great deal of the produce of Con- 
necticut, which comes in shallops through the sound. She 
also exports considerable quantities of the state of Vermont 
and also of East Jersey ; and in proportion that she exports the 
produce of other states she also imports for them. Not a third 
of what she imports is consumed in her own state. It is the 
commodious situation of the port of New-York, soon in, and 
soon out to sea, and not to any tiling in the Governor's cata- 
logue of pastoral compliments, that gives New-York a supe- 
riority in commerce over Philadelphia. 

It ought also to irked, that the course of commerce 

has u rable changes within a few years. In 

tli* first place, it waa the policy of the English government to 
the sevi si they were then called, separate 

and u other; ami as New-York w;is pos- 

1 by the British during the war, the conveniences of New- 
York as i port of rent 

ie war. the rase was, that I were the 

carriers for the Southern States; and tie I, that the 

- make N • v their port of 
rend' they load with the produ< i them 

stai. i, 1 i -York b d export 

it to EttrO "lie artier 

Cotton, indigo. pitch, tar, ttirpnt it;. . 

than between forty and fiftj sea vessels that appear as if they 
belonged to the ; \ . an \ tnd built, 

and owned 1>\ ' tnd. of w hi. I arc 

of NeW-B 'it or charter. 

Governor Lewii should hare informed himself of all tl 
matters before hi u k to commit himself in a • 

the legislature 

I now come to rennrk on another passage in the Go* 






REMARK9 ON GOVERNOR LEWIs's SPEECH. 469 

vernor's speech immediately following the passage already 
quoted. 

" Similar causes," says the Governor, " have produced simi- 
lar effects in Great Britain, a country unequalled in agricul- 
ture, arts, manufactures, and commerce. It is hut little more 
than fifty years since her attention was earnestly turned to the 
facilities u( internal intercourse. From that period her exports 
have been progressing, and have nearly attained to an increase 
of four hundred per cent., while that of her population has 
not exceeded ten [per cent.l A wise government [the Gover- 
nor means by this his own administration] will not fail to im- 
prove such advantages." 

If the encomiums the Governor here makes upon England 
were well founded, which they are not, they would, neverthe- 
less, be ill timed. 

In the condition Europe is now in, it is best not to make any 
speechifying allusion to one part that may offend some other 
part ; but the encomiums he makes are fallacious. As to the 
agriculture of England, the fact is, that beside not victualling 
its own navy, which is victualled by Ireland, it does not produce 
grain enough for the support of its own inhabitants, and were 
it not for the cargoes of wheat and other grain which England 
procures from the United States and from the Baltic, the peo- 
ple would be in a starving condition. In point of quality, the 
French wheat is superior to the English. 

As to Great Britain being unequalled in " arts," as the Go- 
vernor has not said what arts lie means, the expression is too 
rague and general to admit of remarks. There are all sorts of 
arts, even down to the black art. The English government has 
the art of taxing the people till thousands of them cannot buy 
a Sunday dinner ; and the church has the art of picking their 
pockets by tythes for the good of their souls. In what are 
called the fine arts the English are inferior to the southern na- 
tions of Europe ; and in the invention of new arts, the French 
are superior to the English. The art of sailing in the air by 
balloons, by means of which the face of a large extent of coun- 
try and the position of an enemy can be reconnoitred, and the 
art of communicating information to the distance of two or 



470 REMARKS ON* GOVERNOR LEWISES SPEECH. 

three hundred miles in two or three hours, b}- telegraphs, are 
French inventions. And certainly the Governor does not 
mean the military art. If he does, I leave him to settle that 
matter with Buonaparte. 

As to " manufactures," which makes another item of the 
Governor's encomiums, the rase is, that every nation excels 
in some, and no nation excels in all. The French excel the 
English in every article of silk manufacture, and in the manu- 
facture of superfine broad cloth. The broad cloth in France, 
called cloth of Lovaiu, is as much beyond an English super- 
fine as an English superfine is beyond a second cloth. The 
French also excel in every article o\ glass manufacture, plate- 
, window-glass, and hollow ire, and those articles 

are also cheaper in France than in England. The English 
eel the French in the cotton manufacture, but as the machinery 
for it, which was tin 1 invention i^' Richard Arkwright, an En- 
glish Barhi r. is now made in France, and in other parts of 
Europe, the monopoly of that manufacture land will 

4i to '. with which the Governor completes his 

climax of enCO . it is difficult to say any thing about it. 

r is n<>t favourable to commerce or to manufae- 
that depend on exportation. England !>• in<, r an island, 

can have no i now shut 

out from all the ports of th< European continent Whereas, 
! *. has the range of the 

continent by land. She can trade by land to Portugal, Spain, 
Italy, all Germany, Austria, Poland. Denmark, and, if -he 
pi. ases, to Constantinople, without going to sea. Tin 
of this war has shown that navies are useless with respect to 
The English na\ \ . great and exp< i it is, 

can do Qothii the commei {land. That 

navy is HOW a dead weight upon the nation. 

If Governor Lewis wanted to till up a paragraph in his 
eh about the condition of England, he might have done it 
much better than he h;is d< 

I itead of tar-fetched allusions and ill-founded encomiums, 
unwisely forced into notice, he might in speaking of England 



REMARKS ON GOVERNOR LEWIS'S SPEECH. 471 

have exhibited the melancholy spectacle of a nation ruining' 
itself by wars* navies, and national debts, till every seventh 
person in that unfortunate country is a pauper.* 

He might have expatiated on the dreadful effects of cor- 
ruption, and produced the conduct of the British government 
as a warning of the danger. He might have held up the in- 
solvency of the Bank of England as a memento against the 
fatal consequences of multiplying banks or increasing the 
quantity of bank paper. There is something rotten in the 
conditior of England, that ought to operate as a warning and 
not as an example. 

AN OLD CITIZEN OF THE UNION. 

Feb. 23, 1807. 



* The population of England consists of eight millions of souls. The 
number of paupers, according to an account given to Parliament twe 
years ago, was one million two hundred thousand ! 



OF GUN-BOATS 



A oun-boat, carrying heavy metal, is a moveable fortifica- 
tion ; and there is no mode or system of defence the United 
States can go into for coasts and harbours or ports, that will 
be so effectual as by nun-boats. 

Ships of the line are no ways fitted for the defence of a 
coast. They are too balky to act in narrow waters, and can- 
not act at all in shoal waters. Like a whale, they must be in 
deep water, and at a distance from land. 

Frigates require less room to act in than ships of the line ; 
but a frigate it ■ fe< ble machine compared with a gun~boat 
Were a frigate to carry and discharge the samt' weight of i 
and hall that a gun-boat can do, it would shake her to pi 
The timht ngth of every ship of war ia in proportion 

to the weigh! of metal she is to carry, and the weight of metal 
she is to be exposed to. The sides of a frigate are not proof 
against the weight of • ball that a gun-boat can discharge. 
The difference between two ships of war is not so much in 
their number of guns as in tin ir weight of metal 

I remember the late Commodore Johnson saying in the Bri- 
tish House of Commons, at the commencement of the Ameri- 
can war, that ** a single gun, in a retired situation, would drive 
S ship of the line from her moorings. I mention this, (said he) 
that too much may not be expected from tin nav\." 

A gun-boat can earrj ■ gun of the sam< w< ight of metal and 

ball that a ship of an hundred guns can carry; and she carries 

it to the greatest possible advantage! The shot from ■ gun- 
boat is a horizontal shot The gUU is fixed in Q frame that 
slides in a groove, and when the man at the helm brings the 
head of the boat to point at the ship, the gttti is pointed with 
it WhflD a ship fights with her starboard or larboard guns, 
she presents the whole broadside of the ship to the object she 



OF GUN-BOATS. 4T3 

fires at. A gun-boat fights only with her head, that is, with 
the gun at her head, and when she fires at an object, she pre- 
sents only the breadth of the boat to that object. Suppose, 
then, a boat to be ten feet broad and two feet out of the water 
(I speak here of boats intended for the defence of the coast, 
and of towns situated near the coast, and to carry a gun of the 
same weight of metal and ball that a ship of the line carries,) 
such a boat will present a space to be fired at equal to twenty 
square feet, that is, ten feet horizontal length (being the breadth 
of the boat) and two feet perpendicular height, being the 
height of the boat out of the water. Suppose, on the other 
hand, that a ship be an hundred feet long and ten feet high out 
of the water, she will present a space to be fired at equal to 
one thousand square feet, that is, a hundred multiplied by ten. 
It is probable that a ship, in fiping at a gun-boat, would fire one 
oi her bow guns, because in so doing she apparently shortens 
about one half of her length ; but she can fire but one gun at 
a time in this angular position. 

But the gun-boat has other chances in her favour besides 
what arise from the different dimensions of the two objects. 
If a shot from the ship, though in a straight line with the boat, 
passes more than two feet above the water at the place where 
the boat is, it will pass over the boat without striking it. But 
a shot from the boat that is too high to strike the ship, may 
strike the mast and carry it way. It is by this means that 
masts are carried away. The shot that does it passes clear 
above the ship, and spends its whole force upon the mast 
Again, if a shot from the ship pass an inch or two wide of the 
boat, it <an do her no injury. But a shot from the boat that 
passes five or six inches wide of the body of the ship at the 
stern, may unship or carry away her rudder. This, and the 
carrying away a mast, are the two most fatal accidents that can 
befall a ship ; yet neither of them can happen to a gun^-boat. 

Of the number of men killed or wounded in a ship, the greater 
part of them are not by cannon balls, but by splinters from the 
inside of the ship that fly in all directions ; but the sides of a 
gun-boat not being thick like the sides of a ship, a ball would 
pass through without splinters ; and as an effectual way to pre* 
vent splinters, should any happen or be apprehended, the sides 

vol. i* 00 



474 OF GIN-BOAT8. 

of the boat on the inside should be lined with a strong netting 
made of cord, which the men can make themselves. The ca- 
bins of French ships are frequently lined in this manner. 

Musketry can be used by ship against ship in close action, 
but cannot be used against a gun-boat, because a gun-boat 
drawing but little water, not more than two and a half or three 
feet, and depending upon oars, can always keep out of the reach 
of musketry. The proper distance for a gun-boat to fire at is 
point blank shot.* The men should be frequently exercised at 
firing point blank shot at banks of earth on shore, or against 
the high perpendicular shores of rivers* like the North River, 
or against the hulk of old ships that are to be broken up, the 
man at the helm to point the boat and give the order for firing. 
A gun-boat should not carry a less weight of ball than twenty- 
four pounds. A frigate would not choose to expose her sides 
to such shot. 

The first gun-boats built in the United States, were for the 
defence of the Delaware, in 1775 and 1770. The Roebuck 
man of war came up the Delaware within a few miles of Phil- 
adelphia, and the gun-boats went and attacked her. The ship 
fired broadsides without Striking any of the boats, and as the 
deep water the ship was in, was but narrow, the re-action of the 
broadsides forced fur into shoal water, and she got aground. 
The man who comm;inded the gun-boats, a suspected character 
of the name of White, gave orders to the boats to cease firing, 

and when the tide rose the ship floated and made the b< 
her way to sea. White afterwards joined the British at New- 
York. " 

When General Howe sailed from New-York, in 1777, to get 

possession of Philadelphia, he avoided coining up the Delaware, 
where the gun-boats were, and went to the Chesapeake, where 
there were none, and marched by land from the head of Elk 
into Pennsylvania. No cause can be assigned for this circuit- 
ous route of several hundred miles, but that of not exposing 
his ships and transports to the gun-boats. There were at that 
time a fortification on Mud Island, a few miles below Philadel- 



• Point blank niiisket shot is 250 yards, point blank cannon shot varies 
according to the size of the eannon. 



OP GUN-BOATS. 475 

phia, and another at Red Bank, on the Jersey shore opposite ; 
but Howe could have landed below those, and out of the reach 
of their shot ; but he could land no where on the Delaware 
chore, nor be any where with his ships in the Delaware, out of 
the reach of the moveable fortifications, the gun-boats. After 
General Howe got possession of Philadelphia by land, the gun- 
boats quitted their station below, and came above the city. 

The Asia man of war, of GO guns, Captain Vandeput, got 
aground in New- York harbour, three or four miles below the 
city, in the spring of 1776. General Lee commanded at New- 
York at that time, and had there been any gun-boats, they 
could have taken her, because they could have raked her fore 
and aft, and obliged her to strike. A man of war aground is like 
a bird shot in the wing, it can make no effort to save itself. 
As to the guns on the point now called the Battery, they could 
do nothing. The ship was out of the reach of their shot. 

The gun-boats built in France for the descent upon England 
are numerous and formidable, being more than two thousand. 
They were began in the year 1796. Those which I have seen, 
being both convoy and transport, were about sixty feet long, 
sixteen broad, drew about two and a half feet water, carried a 
twenty-four or thirty-six pounder at the head, and a field-piece 
in the stern, with a flap by which to run the field-piece out as 
soon as the boat touches ground ashore, as they run a wagon 
out of a scow. Each boat carried a hundred men, and rowed 
with twenty-five oars on a side. They have since built a much 
larger sort, called praams. These also are flat-bottomed, draw 
three or four feet water, and are from four to six hundred tons 
burthen, and carry several very large cannon, not less, I sup- 
pose, than forty-eight pounders at least. 

The British men of war have made several attempts against 
the French gun-boats at Boulogne, but were always defeated. 
The last attempt was by fire-arrows, which might be formidable 
against ships, because of their sails and rigging, but is ridicu- 
lous against gun-boats. 

A great deal has been said in Congress and in the New-York 
newspapers about fortifying New-York. Mr. N. Williams, in 
a speech in Congress, January 23, said, " The gentleman on my 
right (meaning Mr. Smilie) meets the proposition for fortifying 



1*6 OF CUX-DOATS. 

New-York with a most formidable objection. Expend, (says 
he,) what money you will, it is impossible to erect fortifica- 
tions that shall prove sufficient to defend the harbour and 
city of New-York. He (Mr. Smilie) calls upon us for a plan, 
and tells us, that if it can be defended, to produce our plan." 
" I do not (continues Mr. Williams) pretend to be very wise 
upon this subject myself, but I have been told that the ablest 
engineers have examined the position, and have given it as their 
opinion, that an effectual mode of defence is practicable. But 
if defence is impossible, I call upon the gentleman (meaning 
Mr. Smilie) to show wherein the peculiarity of the situation of 
that place (New-York) consists, to render it so. For surely the 
pretence of impossibility would not be made use of here, unless 
the city and harbour of New-York were different from all other 
places in the world that were ever defended." 

I now come to reply to the demand Mr. Williams has made. 
I shall do this as concisely as the limit to which I confine my- 
self will admit ; but what I say will serve to sow seeds of thought 
in the minds of others upon this subject, and may prevent mil- 
lions of dollars be in «, r wasted in vain. 

Fortification is founded on geometrical principles, and where 
the condition of a piece is such that those principles cannot be 
applied, that piece cannot be fortified to produce any effect. 
A place that c;innot he enclosed in a polygon, cannot be forti- 
fied on any principles of fortification, unless there he a part so 
strong by nature, as to be inaccessible to a besieging army. 
The fortified parts are then sections of a polygon. New- 
York cannot he enclosed in a polygon, and therefore cannot 
be fortified ; neither is any part of it strong by nature. It is 
approachable in every pert by land or water, and besides this, 
it can he bombarded across the East River from Long Island. 

It is absolutely oeceqsan in fortifying s town that all parts 

of it be equally Strong, or an enemy will attack only the weak- 
est part. New-York cannot be made equally strong in all its 
parts, and therefore it is money thrown away to attempt to for- 
tify it. Those who wish to know more on this subject, may 
consult any encyclopedia, or any dictionary of arts and sci- 
ences} under the head of fortification. They will there find 
plans of fortified places by Count Pagan, Blondcl, Vauban, 



OF OUN-BOATS. 477 

Scheiter, &c. But the plans and drawings are all on the same 
principles. They are all polygons. 

Some of our New-York papers have talked of fortifying 
New-York with "impregnable fortifications" There never 
yet was an impregnable fortification, nor ever can be. Every 
fortified place can be taken that can be approached. All that 
a fortified place can do, is to delay the progress of an enemy 
till an army can arrive to raise the siege. Buonaparte takes 
every fortified place he goes against, but he fortifies no places 
himself. lie trusts to the open field, for when you are master 
of the field (and the militia of the States are numerous enough 
to be master of the field against an enemy) fortifications are of 
no use. The population of the United States when the revo- 
lutionary war began was but two millions and a half. It is 
now nearly six millions, and surely the people are not grown 
cowards, whatever the Fed and Tory faction may be. It was 
cowardice that made them Tories at first. The British im- 
postor and emissary, Cullen, alias M'Cullcn, alias Carpenter^ 
said in one of his papers, that a single frigate could lay the city 
of New-York under contribution. This showed the extreme 
ignorance of the man. Two twelve-pounders, or heavier me- 
tal if it can conveniently be had, taken to the water edge, 
would soon oblige the frigate to quit her station. I saw this 
done in the revolutionary war to two frigates, the Pearl frigate 
and another with her. It proved Commodore Johnson's opi- 
nion to be correct. 

The lower a gun is to the surface of the water, the more cer- 
tain the shot is. This is one of the cases that gives a gun- 
boat an advantage against ships. If a shot from a ship strikes 
another ship between wind and water, it is always a chance 
occasioned by the heeling of the ship that is struck. But the 
direction of a shot from a gun-boat is so nearly between wind 
and water, that it generally strikes there or thereabouts. As 
to land batteries that are elevated, they have but little chance 
of striking a ship, as their fire is always in an oblique or slo- 
ping direction ; whereas from a gun-boat it is a horizontal 
line. Fort Washington was built to prevent British ships 
going up the North River, and it never struck one of them ; 
but it killed three men by chance-medley coming down the 



478 OF GUN-BOATS. 

river in General Washington's barge, and this was the only 
vessel it ever struck. 

When all the plans that can be devised for fortifying the 
Narrows are examined, for there is no fortifying the city, it 
will be found that half a dozen gun-boats carrying twenty-four 
pounders, will do it more effectually than can be done by any 
other method. 

COMMON SENSE. 

New-York, March 11, 1907. 



OF THE 

COMPARATIVE POWERS AND EXPENSE OP 

SHIPS OF WAR, GUN-BOATS, AND 
FORTIFICATIONS. 



The natural defence by men is common to all nations; but 
artificial defence as an auxiliary to human strength must be 
adapted to the local condition and circumstances of a country. 
What may be suitable to one country, or in one state of cir- 
cumstances, may not be so in another. 

The United States have a long line of coast of more than 
two thousand miles, every part of which requires defence, be- 
cause every part is approachable by water. 

The right principle for the United States to go upon as a 
water defence for the coast, is that of combining the greatest 
practical power with the least possible bulk, that the whole 
quantity of power may be better distributed through the seve- 
ral parts of such an extensive coast. 

The power of a ship of war is altogether in the number and 
size of the guns she carries, for the ship, of itself, has no 
power. Ships cannot struggle with each other like animals ; 
and besides this, as half her guns are on one side the ship and 
half on the other, and as she can use only the guns on one side 
at a time, her real power is only equal to half her number of 
guns. A seventy-four can use only thirty-seven guns. She 
must tack about to bring the other half into action, and while 
she is doing this she is defenceless and exposed. 

As this is the case with ships of war, a question naturally 
arises therefrom, which is, whether seventy-four guns, or any 
other number, cannot be more effectually employed, and that 
with much less expense, than by putting them all into one ship 



4S0 OF THE COMPARATIVE POWERS AND EXPENSE 

of such enormous bulk that it cannot approach a shore either 
to defend it or attack it; and though the ship can change its 
place, the whole number of guns can be only in one place at a 
time, and only half that number can be used at a time. 

This is a true statement of the case between ships of war 
and gun-boats for the defence of a coast and of towns situated 
near a coast. But the case often is, that men are led away by 
the greatness of an idea, and not by the justness of it. 
This is always the case with those who are advocates for na- 
vies and large ships. 

A gun-boat carrying as heavy metal as a ship of one hun- 
dred guns can carry, is a one gun ship of the line ; and se- 
venty-four of them, which would cost much less than a 71 gun 
ship would cost, would be able to blow a 74 gun ship out of 
the water. They have, in the use of their trims, double the 
power of the ship, that is, they have the use of their whole 
number of 74 to 37. 

Having thus stated the ubjeet, I 

come to particulars. 

That I might hai t data to go upon with respect to 

the expense of sbipi and gun-boats, I wrote to the head oi 
one of the departmenti at Washington for information on that 
subject. 

The following hi the answer I received: 

"Calculating th< i i 71 or 100 gun ship, from the 

actual cost of the ship United States of 1 1 guns, built at Phil- 
adelphia, between the years 1 ")'.>."> and 1798, which amounted 
to 300,000 dollars, it may DC presumed th.it ■ 71 gUB ship 
would cost 500,000 dollars, and a 100 gun ship 700,000 dollars. 

"Gun-boats calculated rnerelj lor the defence of harbesurs 

and rivers will, 00 an average, cost about 1000 dollars each, 
when lit t0 H Oeive the crew and provi-ion-." 

On the data here given, I proceed to State comparative cal- 
culations respei ting ships and gun-boats. 

The ship, United States, cost 300,000 dollars. Cun-hoat* 

cost 4000 dollars each, consequently the 300,000 expended on 
the ship for the purpose of getting the use of 44 guns, and 
those not heavy metal, would have built sevcnty-fne gun-boatfl, 
each carrying a cannon of lhc same weight oi' metal that « 



OF SHIPS OF WAR, GUN-BOATS, AND FORTIFICATIONS. 481 

ship of a hundred guns can carry. The difference therefore 
is, that the gun-boats give the use of 31 guns heavy metal 
more than can be obtained by the ship, and the expenses in 
both cases equal. 

A 74 gun ship cost 500,000 dollars. This same money will 
build 125 gun-boats. The gain by gun-boats is the use of 51 
guns more than can be obtained by expending the money on a 
ship of 74 guns. 

The cost of a 100 gun ship is 700,000 dollars. This money 
will build 175 gun-boats. The gain, therefore, by the boats, is 
the use of 75 guns more than by the ship. 

Though I had a general impression, ever since I had a 
knowledge of gun-boats, that any given sum of money would 
go farther in building gun-boats than in building ships of war, 
and that gun-boats were preferable to ships for home defence, 
I did not suppose the difference was so great as the calcula- 
tions above given prove them to be, for it is almost double in 
favour of gun-boats. It is as 175 to 100. The cause of this 
difference is easily explained. 

The fact is, that all that part of the expense in building a 
ship from the deck upward, including mast, yards, sails and 
rigging, is saved by building gun-boats, which are moved by 
oars, or a light sail occasionally. 

The difference also in point of repairs between ships of war 
and gun-boats is not only great, but is greater in proportion 
than in their first cost. The repairs of ships of war is annu- 
ally from 1-14 to 1-10 of their first cost. The annual expense 
of the repairs of a ship that cost 300,000 dollars will be above 
21,000 dollars ; the greatest part of this expense is in her sails 
and rigging, which gun-boats are free from. 

The difference also in point of duration is great. Gun- 
boats, when not in use, can be put under shelter and preserved 
from the weather, but ships cannot ; or the boats can be sunk 
in the water or the mud. This is the way the nuts of cider 
mills for grinding apples are preserved. Were they to be ex- 
posed to the dry and hot air after coming wet from the mill, 
they would crack and split, and be good for nothing. But tim- 
ber under water will continue sound for several hundred years, 
provided there be no worms. % 

vol. i. 01 



482 OF THE COMPARATIVE POWERS AND EXPENSE 

Another advantage in favour of gun-boats, is the expedition 
with which a great number of them can be built at once. A 
hundred may be built as soon as one, if there are hands enough 
to set about them separately. They do not require the prepa- 
rations for building them that ships require, nor deep water to 
launch them in. They can be built on the shore of shallow 
waters, or they might be framed in the woods or forests, and 
the parts brought separately down and put together on the 
shore. But ships take up a long time building. The ship 
United States took up two whole years, '96 and '97, and part of 
the years '95 and '98, and all this for the purpose of getting the 
use of 44 guns, and those not heavy metal. This foolish affair 
was not in the days of the present administration. 

Ships and gun-boats are for different services. Ships are 
for distant expeditions ; gun-boats for home defence. The one 
for the ocean ; the other for the shore. 

Gun-boats being moved by oars cannot be deprived of mo- 
tion by calms, for the calmer the weather the better for the 
boat But a hostile ship becalmed in any of our waters, can 
be taken by gun-boata moved by oars, let the rate of the ship 
be what it may. A ICO gun man of war becalmed, is like a 
giant in a dead palsy. Every little fellow can kick him. 

The United States ought to have 500 gun-boats stationed in 
different parts of the coast, each carrying a thirty-two or thirty- 
six pounder. Hostile ships would not then venture to lay 
within our waters, were it only for the certainty of being some- 
times becalmed. They would then become prizes, and the in 
suiting bullies on the ocean become prisoners in our own 
waters. 

Having thus stated the comparative powers and expense of 
ships of war and gun-boats, I come to speak of fortifications. 

Fortifications may be comprehended under two general 
heads. 

First, fortified towns ; that is, towns enclosed within a for- 
tified polygon, of which there are many on the continent of 
Europe, but not any in England. 

Secondly, simple forts and batteries. These are not formed 
on the regular principles of fortification, that is, they are not 
formed for the purpose of standing a siege as a fortified polygon 



OF SHIPS OF WAR, GUN-COATS, AND FORTIFICATIONS. 4S3 

is. They are for the purpose of obstructing or annoying the 
progress of an enemy by land or water. 

Batteries are formidable in defending narrow passes by land; 
such as the passage of a bridge, or cf a road cut through a 
rough and craggy mountain that cannot be passed any where 
else. But they are not formidable in defending water-passes, 
because a ship with a brisk wind, tide, and running at the rate 
of ten miles an hour, will be out of the reach of the fire of the 
battery in fifteen or twenty minutes, and being a swift moving 
object all the time, it would be a mere chance that any shot 
struck her. 

When the object of a ship is that of passing a battery for 
the purpose of attaining or attacking some other object, it is 
not customary with the ship to fire at the battery, lest it should 
disturb her course. Three or four men are kept on deck to 
attend the helm, and the rest, having nothing to do, go below. 
Duckworth, in passing the Dardanelles up to Constantinople, 
did not fire at the batteries. 

When batteries for the defence of water-passes can be erect- 
ed without any great expense, and the men not exposed to cap- 
ture, it may be very proper to have them. They may keep off 
small piratical vessels, but they are not to be trusted to for 
defence. 

Fortifications give, in general, a delusive idea of protection. 
All our principal losses in the revolutionary war were occa- 
sioned by trusting to fortifications. Fort Washington, with a 
garrison of 2500 men, was taken in less than four hours, and 
the men made prisoners of war. The same fate had befallen 
Fort Lee on the opposite shore, if General Lee had not moved 
hastily off and gained Hackensack bridge. General Lincoln 
fortified Charleston, S. C, and himself and his army were 
made prisoners of war. General Washington began fortifying 
New-York in 1778 ; General Howe passed up the East river, 
landed his army at Frog's Point, about twenty miles above the 
city, and marched down upon it, and had not General Wash- 
ington stole silently and suddenly off on the North River side 
of York Island, himself and his army had also been prisoners. 
Trust not to fortifications, otherwise than as batteries that can 
bo abandoned at discretion. 



484 OF SHIPS OF WAR, GUN-BOATS, AND FORTIFICATIONS. 

The case however is, that batteries, as a water defence 
against the passage of ships, cannot do much. Were any given 
number of guns to be put in a battery for that purpose, and an 
equal number of the same weight of metal put in gun-boats 
for the same purpose, those in the boats would be more effec- 
tual than those in the battery. The reason for this is obvious. 
A battery is stationary. Its fire is limited to about two miles, 
and there its power ceases. But every gun-boat moved by- 
oars is a moveable fortification that can follow up its fire, and 
change its place and its position as circumstances may require. 
And besides this, gun-boats in calms are the sovereigns of 
ships. 

As this matter interests the public, and most probably will 
come before Congress at its next meeting, if the printers in any 
of the states, after publishing it in their newspapers, have a 
mind to publish it in a pamphlet form, together with my former 
piece on gun-boats, they have my consent freely. I take nei- 
ther copy-right nor profit for any thing I publish. 

COMMON 8ENSE. 

New-York, July 21 , 1807. 



REMARKS 

ON A STRING OF RESOLUTIONS OFFERED BY MR. 
HALE, TO THE NEW-YORK HOUSE OF REPRE- 
SENTATIVES AT ALBANY. 



These resolutions have the appearance of being what is 
sometimes called an electioneering trick, similar to that about 
fortifications, practised at New-York when the election for 
charter officers was to come on. They arc like baits thrown 
out to catch gudgeons. J. will examine each of the resolutions 
separately, and show their defects. 

First, " Resolved, if the honourable Senate concur herein, 
that in the present state of our national concerns, it becomes 
the duty of the people of this state, represented in Senate and 
Assembly, to express their sentiments on the important subject 
of fortifying the port and harbour of New-York, and of pro- 
tecting the valuable and extensive commerce of the United 
States." 

Remarks. — Is Mr. Hale acquainted with the subject he 
speaks upon? Does he know enough of the principles of for- 
tification to explain to the house what is practicable, and what 
is impracticable ? Did he ever see a fortified town, fortified, I 
mean, on the established principles of fortification? Does he 
know, scientifically or practically, what places can be fortified, 
and what cannot ? If he does not know these things, he has 
waded out of his depth in making his resolves. 

He speaks of the " port and harbour of New-York." But 
what ideas does he affix to the terms " port and harbour ?" If 
by port, he means the city of New-York, it proves he knows 
nothing of fortification ; for the condition of New-York, as 
well by nature as by the irregularity of its outline, renders for- 
tifying it impossible. 



486 RESOLUTIONS OFFERED BV MR. II A I.E. 

Again, if by the term harbour, he means the waters at the 
wharfs within the range of the harbour master, the case is, that 
to begin a fortification there, the ships must be sent up the East 
or North river, and the wharfs turned into parapet batteries 
with embrazures, and planted with cannon. Commerce and 
fortification cannot be in the same place. 

But if by harbour, he means the bay between the city and 
the narrows, the most effectual defence would be by gun -boats, 
each carrying a twenty-pounder. A gun-boat being a move- 
able fortification has a large sphere to act in, and a battery on 
land a small one. A ship can always keep out of the reach of 
a land battery, or with a brisk wind and tide, can be out of the 
range of its shot in fifteen minutes, and being a moving object 
all the time, the chance is, that not a shot would strike her. 

Before men assume to make motions, and resolve about for- 
tifications, they should endeavour to understand them. The 
history of fortifications during the revolutionary war, is the 
history of traps. All our principal losses in that war were oc- 
casioned by trusting to fortifications. Fort Washington, with 
2500 men, was taken in less than four hours, and the men made 
prisoners of war. The same would have befallen the garrison 
at Fort Lee, on the opposite shore, had not General Greene 
marched suddenly off and gained Hackensack bridge. In the 
spring and summer of 1776, General Washington had posses- 
sion of New-York, and fortified it ; General Howe passed up 
the East River, landed his troops about twenty miles above the 
city, and after taking possession of King's Bridge, marched 
down upon the city, and had not General Washington stole off 
on the North River side of York Island, he and the army with 
him had been prisoners. General Lincoln undertook to for- 
tify Charleston, and he and the garrison were shut up in it by 
the enemy and made prisoners of war. It is an imposition on 
the public to hold up the idea of fortifications as places of safety. 
The open field is always the best. One of the principal cares 
of a general is to secure a retreat in case of a defeat, but there 
is no retreat for men besieged in a fortified town. I pass on to 
his second resolve. 

" Resolved, That when this State, in acceding to the govern- 
ment of the United States, surrendered its valuable and in- 



RESOLUTIONS OFFERED BY MR. HALE. 487 

creasing impost revenue for the general benefit of the union, it 
was done under a full conviction that it would then become 
the indispensable duty of the United States in return, to afford 
the capital, harbour, and commerce of this state, full and com- 
petent protection." 

This resolve is founded in error, and every position it con- 
tains is fallacious. 

The several states agreed to consolidate the impost revenue 
for the benefit of the whole. There was no surrender in the 
case. Every state did the same thing, because it was its duty 
to do it. This consolidation of the impost revenue was for the 
purpose of sinking the debt, as well foreign as domestic, in- 
curred by the war, and also to defray the expense of the gene- 
ral government ; and had it not been for the extravagance of 
former administrations, which increased the debt instead of di- 
minishing it, the debt would have been sunk before this time. 
The present administration had a dead horse to pull out of 
the mire. 

It is also to be observed, that the prosperity of New-York 
arises from the very circumstance of which this resolve com- 
plains, Had New-York not agreed to consolidate the impost 
revenue in common with the other states, she would have been 
excluded from the commerce and carrying trade of all the 
other states, and have sunk into solitary insignificance. Her 
wharfs would not have been crowded with ships as they 
are now. 

It is by consolidating the impost revenue into a whole, and 
thereby leaving every state to choose its port of export or im- 
port, cither in its own or in another state, that the commerce, 
or rather the carrying trade, of New-York, has of late years 
increased so much. Were New-York confined to the exports 
of her own state, and to import only for the consumption of 
her own state, she would not have more than a third of the 
commerce and of the carrying trade she has now. The con- 
solidation of the impost revenue has operated as a bounty to 
New-York, and this short-sighted legislator complains of it. 
But though men, as merchants, tied down to the study of their 
legers and cash-books, are in general but dull politicians, it is 
necessary for them to understand their own affairs, and they 



488 RESOLUTIONS OFFERED BY MR. HALE. 

ought to have advised Mr. Hale not to have brought in the 
string of foolish and ill-founded resolves he has done. 

C****N S ### E. 



Remarks on Mr. Hale's string of Resolves concluded. 

In my former number I examined Mr. Hale's two first re- 
solves, and showed the fallacy of them. In this, I shall ex- 
tract such parts of his remaining resolves as expose themselves 
most to public notice. 

His third resolve is mere declamation about the old bug-bear 
of fortifications. 

His fourth resolve is an indecent invective against Congress, 
on the same subject. 

In his fifth resolve, he speaks of " the public debt being ma- 
terially reduced, and of the favourable prospect of its total ex- 
tinction in a few years, by the happy and successful operation, 
(he says) of the funding system." But what funding system 
does he mean ? It certainly is not by the operation of any fund- 
ing in the administration of Washington or Adams. The pub- 
lic debt increased in both these administrations ; and as to 
John Adams, he left the treasury overflowing with debt, and the 
country overrun with internal taxes. It is by the economy and 
wise management of the present administration only, that the 
happy effects of which Mr. Hale speaks has been produced, but 
it does not suit him to say so. O, Malignancy, thou art a hate- 
ful monster ! 

Mr. Hale concludes this resolve, by proposing, in conse- 
quence of this flourishing state of the revenue, that Congress 
should appropriate to each state a sum equal to the impost re- 
venue which each state may produce, to be employed for the 
purpose of fortifications. This is what in common life is called 
" a take in." There is something insidious in it, which I shall 
expose when I come to remark on the resolve which follows 
to which this is an introduction. 

" Resolved, That under all existing circumstances, this State 
is entitled to ask and demand of the Government of the United 
States, the appropriation of a sum equal to the amount of the 



RESOLUTIONS OFFERED BY MR. HALE. 489 

impost revenue of the port of New-York, to be applied to the 
purpose of defending the port and harbour of the said city (of 
New-York.") 

I now go to examine the ground of this resolve, and to de- 
tect the fallacy of it, by laying down a certain rule whereby to 
ascertain the quantity of impost revenue arising from the quan- 
tity of population in any of the states, and to distinguish that 
quantity from the gross amount of impost revenue collected in 
any port of entry. 

The total amount of impost revenue arising from the total 
population of all the states is 12,000,000 dollars, of which sum 
each state contributes a part in proportion to its quantity of 
population, whether it imports into its own state, or purchases 
imported articles in other states with the import duty upon 
them. For example : — 

The state of New-Jersey does not import any thing. The 
eastern part of that state purchase imported articles at the 
port of New-York, and the western part at the port of Phila- 
delphia, and these two ports are collectors of the impost re- 
venue of New-Jersey, which according to its population is 
above 400,000 dollars, as I shall show ; and the merchants of 
whom those purchases are made have the use of that money 
without interest, till they pay it into the treasury of the United 
States. 

I now come to lay down the rule for ascertaining the quan 
tity of impost revenue paid by each state, which is : — 

As the total population of all the states is to the total impost 
revenue of 12,000,000 dollars, so is the population of any state 
io the portion it pays of that 12,000,000 dollars. 

The total population of all the states, according to the last 

census, taken in 1801, was, at that time, 5,309,758 

The population of New-York, - - 586,050 

Of Pennsylvania, ,-,,♦* 602,545 

Of New-Jersey, 211,149 

According to the progressive increase of population in the 
United States, which doubles itself in every twenty-four or 
twenty-five years, the population in 1801 will now be increased 

vol. i. 62 



490 RESOLUTIONS OFFERED BY MR. HALE. 

one fourth, and therefore the present population of the state 

of New- York is, 732,560 

Ditto of Pennsylvania, 753,181 

Ditto of New-Jersey, 264,648 

And the total population of all the states is, 6,637,197 

To find what portion of 12,000,000 is paid by the state of 
New-York, say, as 6,637,197, the total population, is to 
12,000,000, so is 732,560, the population of NeAV-York, to 
the portion it pays of that sum, and 

The quotient will be, 1,324,426 

That of Pennsylvania, 1,361,743 

That of New-Jersey, 478,245 

Pennsylvania pays 37,317 more impost revenue than the 
state of New-York pays. 

But the case with New-York is, that she exports and im- 
ports for a large part of the southern states, and also for a part 
of the eastern states, and this increases her collection of im- 
post revenue to more than three times the amount of what she 
pays herself. It is this that enables her merchants, many of 
which are British or British agents, to carry on trade. They 
sell imported articles to other states with the impost duty upon 
them, and receive that impost duty either in money or in pro- 
duce, time enough to make a second voyage with it before they 
pay it into the treasury of the United States. The capitals of 
those merchants are made up, in a great measure,, of the impost 
revenue that rests in their hands. It is by the blunders of such 
men as Mr. Hale, who belongs to the Federal faction of blun- 
dering politicians, that matters of this kind are brought to 
light. The blunders of one man often serve to suggest ideas 
to another man. 

The impost revenue collected at the port of New-York is 
estimated at more than 4,000,000 dollars, about 3,000,000 dol- 
lars of which is drawn from other states, and the remaining 
1,324,426 is paid by the population of New-York, which, as 
before said, is 37,317 less than is paid by Pennsylvania. 

Mr. Hale's proposal is, to demand of the government of the 
United States the appropriation of a sum equal to the impost 
revenue of the port of New-York ; as if all the impost revenue 
collected there was paid by the state. I have now placed be. 



RESOLUTIONS OFFERED BY MR. HALE. 491 

fore his eyes the folly as well as the injustice of his proposal, 
and I have also done it to prevent other people being imposed 
upon by such absurdities. 

Mr. Hale concludes his string of resolutions with the fol- 
lowing: — 

** Resolved, As the sense of this Legislature, that no nation, 
however enlightened, populous, or enterprising it may be, can 
maintain a respectable standing as a commercial nation, with- 
out the protection and support of a respectable navy." 

In the first place, this resolve is conceived in ignorance and 
founded on a falsehood. Hamburgh has carried on a greater 
commerce than any town or city in the European continent, 
Amsterdam excepted, and yet Hamburgh has not a single ves- 
sel of war ; and on the other hand, England, with a navy of 
nearly one hundred and forty sail of the line, besides frigates 
almost without number, is shut out by land from all the ports 
on the continent of Europe. 

Navies do not protect commerce, neither is the protection of 
commerce their object. They are for the foolish and unprofit- 
able purpose of fighting and sinking each other at sea ; and the 
result is, that every victory at sea is a victory of loss. The 
conqueror, after sinking and destroying a part of his enemies' 
fleet, goes home with crippled ships and broken bones. The 
English fire the Tower guns, and the French sing Te Deum, 

But Mr. Hale, in order to have completed his work, should 
have added another resolve, and that should have been about 
the expense of a navy ; for, unless the United States have a 
navy at least equal to the navies of other nations, she had bet- 
ter have none, for it will be taken and turned against her. 
The navy of one nation pays no respect to the navy of another 
nation. 

The expense of the English navy for 1806, according to the 
report of the Chancellor of the Exchequer, in March of that 
year, was upwards of 68,000,000 dollars. The portion of the 
expense which the state of New-York would have to pay as Iter 
quota towards raising what Mr. Hale calls a " respectable 
navy" would be 8,000,000 dollars over and above the impost 
revenue of 1,324,426, and therefore Mr. Hale should have 
finished with a resolve to the following purport : — 



492 RESOLUTIONS OFFERED BY MR. HALE. 

14 Resolved, As the sense of this Legislature, that the far- 
mers and landholders of the city and state of New-York ought 
most cheerfully to pay, and this legislature has no doubt bu\ 
they will pay, the sum of 8,000,000 dollars, annually, over 
and above the impost revenue, as the quota of this state, to- 
wards raising a * respectable navy' to fight either the French 
navy, the Spanish navy, the English navy, or any other navy.*' 

As trees cannot be voted into ships by a resolve of the Le- 
gislature, it is first necessary to settle about the expense of a 
navy, and the manner in which that expense is to be defrayed, 
before they resolve about building a navy. Count the cost is a 
good maxim. Mr. Hale has begun his work at the wrong end. 

COMMON SENSE. 

April 3, 1807. 



THREE LETTERS TO MORGAN LEWIS, 

ON HIS PROSECUTION 

OF THOMAS FARMER, FOR ONE HUNDRED 
THOUSAND DOLLARS DAMAGES. 



LETTER THE FIRST. 

The proud integrity of conscious rectitude fears no approach, 
and disdains the mercenary idea of damages. It is not the 
sound, but the ulcerated flesh that flinches from the touch. 
A man must feel his character exceedingly vulnerable, who 
can suppose that any thing said about him, or against him, 
can endamage him a hundred thousand dollars : yet this is 
the sum Morgan Lewis has laid his damages at, in his prose- 
cution of Mr. Farmer, as chairman of a meeting of republican 
citizens. This is a case, abstracted from any idea of damages, 
that ought to be brought before the representatives of the peo- 
ple assembled in Legislature. It is an attempted violation of 
the rights of citizenship, by the man whose official duty it was 
to protect them. 

Mr. Farmer was in the exercise of a legal and constitu- 
tional right. He was chairman of a meeting of citizens, 
peaceably assembled to consider on a matter that concerned 
themselves, the nomination of a proper person to be voted for 
as governor at the ensuing election. Had the meeting thought 
Morgan Lewis a proper person, they would have said so, 
and would have had a right to say so. But the meeting 
thought otherwise, and they had a right to say otherwise. 
But what has Morgan Lewis, as governor, to do with either 
of these cases. He is not governor jure divino, by divine 
right, nor is he covered with the magical mantle which covers 



494 LETTERS TO MORGAN LEWIS. 

a king of England, that he can do no wrong; nor is the go 
vernorship of the state his property, or the property of his 
family connexions. 

If Morgan Lewis could be so unwise and vain as to suppose 
he could prosecute for what he calls damages, he should pro- 
secute every man who composed that meeting, except the chair- 
man ; for, in the office of chairman, Mr. Farmer was a silent 
man on any matter discussed or decided there. He could not 
even give a vote on any subject, unless it was a tie vote, which 
was not the case. The utmost use Mr. Lewis could have 
made of Mr. Farmer, would have been to have subpoenaed him 
to prove that such resolves were voted by the meeting ; for 
Mr. Farmer's signature to those resolves, as chairman of the 
meeting, was no other than an attestation that such resolves 
were then passed. 

Morgan Lewis, in this prosecution, has committed the same 
kind of error that a man would commit, who should prose- 
cute a witness for proving a fact done by a third person, 
instead of prosecuting that third person on whom the fact 
was proved. Morgan Lewis is, in my estimation of character, 
a poor lawyer, and a worse politician. He cannot main- 
tain this prosecution ; but I think Mr. Farmer might main- 
tain a prosecution against him. False prosecution ought to 
be punished ; and this is a false prosecution, because it is 
a wilful prosecution of the wrong person. If Morgan Lewis 
has sustained any damage, or any injury, which I do not be- 
lieve he has, it is by the members composing the meeting, and 
not by the chairman. The resolves of a meeting are not the 
act of the chairman. 

But in what manner will Morgan Lewis prove damages? 
damages must be proved by facts ; they cannot be proved 
by opinion — opinion proves nothing. Damages given by 
opinion, are not damages in fact, and a jury is tied down to 
fact, and cannot take cognizance of opinion. Morgan Lewis 
must prove, that between the time those resolves were passed, 
and the time he commenced his prosecution, he sustained da- 
mages to the amount of one hundred thousand dollars, and he 
must produce facts in proof of it. He must also prove that 
those damages were in consequence of those resolves, and 



LETTERS TO MORGAN LEWIS. 495 

could he prove all this, it would not reach Mr. Farmer, be- 
cause, as before said, the resolves of a meeting are not the act 
of the chairman. 

This is not a case merely before a jury of twelve men. 
The whole public is a jury in a case like this, for it concerns 
their public rights as citizens, and it is for the purpose of free- 
ing it from the quibbling chicanery of law, and to place it in a 
clear intelligible point of view before the people, that I have 
taken it up. 

But as people do not read long pieces on the approach of 
an election, and as it is probable I may give a second piece 
on the subject of damages, I will stop where I am for the 
present. 

THOMAS PAINE. 

April 14, 1807. 



LETTER THE SECOND. 

In my former letter, I showed that Morgan Lewis could not 
maintain a prosecution against Mr. Farmer, because the re- 
solves of a public meeting are not the act of the chairman. 
His signature affixed thereto is not even evidence of his appro- 
bation, though I have no doubt myself but he approved them. 
It is put there for the purpose of certifying that such resolves 
were passed. In this letter I shall proceed further into the 
subject. 

This prosecution is, upon the face of it, an attempt to inti- 
midate the people in their character as citizens, from exercising 
their right of opinion on public men and public measures. 
Had it been a prosecution by one individual against another 
individual, in which the people had no interest or concern, I 
should not have taken the subject up. But it is a case that in- 
volves a question of public rights, and which shows that Mor- 
gan Lewis is not a proper person to be entrusted with the guar- 
dianship of those rights. In the second place, it is a bad ex- 
ample, because it is giving as governor of the state, the perni- 
cious example of instituting frivolous prosecutions for the pur- 



495 LETTERS TO MORGAN LEWIS. 

pose of making money by them. A man of conscious inte- 
grity would feel himself above it, and a man of spirit would 
disdain it. 

One of the objections stated against Morgan Lewis in those 
resolves, is, that he had formed a coalition with the Federalists. 
If Morgan Lewis conceived and felt this to be a disgrace to 
him, he must necessarily, as a cause for that conception, have 
considered the Federalists an infamous set of men, and it is 
now incumbent on him to prove them such, as one of the 
grounds on which he is to prove damages. It is tantamount to 
his having said, in his own manner of speaking, they accuse me 
of being associated with scoundrels. Morgan Lewis is a weak 
man. lie has not talents for the station he holds. He entraps 
himself in his own contrivances. 

But if the objection contained in the resolves was ill-founded, 
why did not Morgan Lewis come forward in the spirit of a man 
and the language of a gentleman, and contradict it. He would 
have gained credit by this, if he was innocent enough to have 
done it. The objection against him was publicly stated, and if 
not true, ought to have been publicly refuted ; for, as Morgan 
Lewis is a public man, and the case involves a public question, 
it is the public of all parties that have a right to know if the 
objections against him are true or not. This case is not a 
question of law, but a question of honour and of public, rights. 

The man who resorts to artifice and cunning, instead of 
standing on the firm and open ground of principle, can easily 
be found out. When those resolved first appeared, Morgan 
Lewis must have felt the necessity of taking some notice of 
them ; but as it did not suit him at tiiat time either to acknow- 
ledge them or contradict them, he had recourse to a prosecu- 
tion, as it would afford a pretence for doing neither. A prose- 
cution viewed in this light would accommodate itself to the situ- 
ation he was in, by holding the matter in obscurity and indeci- 
sion till the election should be over. But the artifice is too 
gauzy not to be seen through, and too apparently trickish not 
to be despised. 

As to damages, Morgan Lewis has sustained none. If those 
resolves have had any effect, it has been to his benefit. He 
was a lost man among the Republicans before the resolves ap» 



LETTERS TO MORGAN LEWIS. 497 

peared, and their public appearance has given him some stand- 
ing among such of the Federalists who are destitute of honour 
and insensible of disgrace. These men will vote for him, and 
also for Rufus King, the persecutor of the unfortunate Irish. 

I now come to speak on the subject of damages generally ; 
for it appears to me that certain juries have run into great mis- 
takes on this subject. They have not distinguished between 
penalty and damages. Penalty is punishment for crime. Da- 
mages is indemnification for losses sustained. When a man is 
prosecuted criminally, all that is necessary to be proved is, the 
fact with which he is charged, and all that the jury has to do 
in this case is to bring in a verdict according to the evidence 
given. The court then passes sentence conformable to the 
law under which the crime is punishable. If it is by fine, or 
imprisonment, or both, the law generally limits the extent of 
the fine or penalty, and also the period of imprisonment. It 
does not leave it to any mad-headod, or avaricious individual, 
or to any jury, to say it shall be an hundred thousand dollars. 

But in prosecutions for what are called damages, two things 
are necessary to be proved. First, the words spoken or pub- 
lished, or actions done. Secondly, damages actually sustained 
in consequence of those words or actions. The words or ac- 
tions can often be proved, and Morgan Lewis may prove that 
certain resolves were passed at a meeting of the citizens, at 
which Thomas Farmer was chairman. But unless Morgan 
Lewis can prove that the meeting exercised illegal authority in 
passing those resolves, and that he has sustained damage in 
consequence thereof, a jury can award him no damages : and 
certain it is, that juries in cases of prosecution for what is 
called damages, cannot inflict penalties. Penalties go to the 
state, and not to the individual. If in any of the late prosecu- 
tions, juries have awarded damages where damages were not 
proved, the execution of the verdict ought to be suspended, 
and the case referred to a new trial. 

THOMAS PAINE, 

April 21, 1807. 

Vol. i. 63 



498 LETTERS TO MORGAN LEFTIST. 



LETTER THE THIRD. 

In this letter, I shall continue my observations on damages 
generally, and take Morgan Lewis in my way. There are 
two descriptions of men who cannot suffer damages. The one 
is the man whose character is already so infamous, that nothing- 
said of him can make him appear worse than he is. The other 
is the man whose character is so invulnerable, that no reproach 
against him can reach him. It falls pointless to the ground, 
or reacts upon the party from whence it came. 

The first time Mr. Jefferson was elected president, the ma» 
jority in his favour was ninety-two to eighty-four. As this 
majority was small, the factions of the Feds redoubled their 
abuse, and multiplied falsehood upon falsehood to throw him 
out at the next election. Their malignity and their lies were 
permitted to pass uncontradicted, and the event was, that at the 
next election, Mr. Jefferson had a majority of one hundred and 
sixty-two to fourteen. 

As this is an instance that invulnerable character cannot 
suffer damage, I leave it to Coleman* Cullen, and Rufus King, 
to identify the persons of the contrary description; and they 
may, if they please, draw lots among themselves, to decide 
which of them shall stand foremost on the list of infamous 
security from damage. 

When Morgan Lewis, in conversation with William Li\ing 
ston, said that "Be Witt Clinton, Judge Comstock, and Judge 
Johnson, were three of the damnedest rascals that ever dis- 
graced the counsels of a state," the venom and vulgarity of the 
expression were too visible to do injury, and the character of 
the man who said it too equivocal to obtain credit. It was not 
worth the trouble of contradicting. Calumny is a vice of a 
curious constitution. Trying to kill it keeps it alive; leave it 
to itself, and it will die a natural death. 

Chancellor Lansing's ill judged and ill written address to 
the public, -comes precisely under the head of calumny. He 
insinuated, in that address, a charge against Governor Clinton, 



LETTERS TO MOROAS LEWIS. 499 

when he (Governor Clinton) was almost three hundred miles 
distant from New^York, and when called upon by George 
Clinton, jun., to explain himself, that the public might know 
what he meant, refused to do it. Mr. Lansing holds the office 
of Chancellor during good behaviour, and this is the reverse 
of good behaviour. The words good behaviour, which are 
the words of the constitution, must have some meaning, or why- 
are they put there ? They certainly apply to the whole of a 
man's moral arid civil character, and not merely to official cha- 
racter. A man may be punctual in his official character, because 
it is his interest to be so, and yet be dishonourable and unjust 
in every thing else. 

Mr. Lansing should have recollected, that Governor Clin- 
ton's long experience in the office of governor, enabled him 
to give useful advice to a young beginner, and his well 
known integrity precludes every idea of his giving any other. 
If Governor Clinton gave any advice to Mr. Lansing on the 
subject he speaks of, Mr. Lansing ought to have felt himself 
obliged to him, instead of which he has turned treacherous and 
ungrateful. 

But though men of conscious integrity, calm and philoso- 
phical, will not descend to the low expedient of prosecuting 
for the sake of what are called damages, there nevertheless 
ought to be a law for punishing calumny; and this becomes 
the more necessary, because it often happens that the prose- 
cutor for damages is himself the calumniator. Morgan Lewis' 
prosecution of Thomas Farmer for one hundred thousand dol- 
lars damages, is holding Mr. Farmer up to the public as an un- 
just man. Maturin Livingston is playing the same game to- 
wards Mr. Jackson, one of the editors of the Independent Re- 
publican ; and the Anglo-Irish impostor, Cullen, who is secured 
from damage by the infamy of his character, is trying to make 
three thousand dollars out of Mr. Frank, one of the editors of 
the Public Advertiser. As the matter stands at present, a 
rogue has a better chance than an honest man. 

There is not a man in the United States, Thomas Jefferson 
excepted, that has been more abused by this mean and un- 
principled faction than myself; yet I have never prose- 



500 LETTERS TO MORGAN LEWIS. 

cuted any of them. I have left them to welter in their own 
lies. But had there been a law to punish calumny and lying 
by penalty, and the money to be given to the poor, I would 
have done it. But as to damages, as I do not believe they 
have character enough of their own to endamage mine, I could 
claim none. 

THOMAS PAINE. 
April 23, 1807. 



ON THE QUESTION, WILL THERE BE 
WAR? 



Every one asks, Will there be war 1 The answer to this is 
easy, which is, That so long as the English government be per- 
mitted, at her own discretion, to search, capture, and condemn 
our vessels, control our commerce, impress our seamen, and 
fire upon and plunder our national ships, as she has done, she 
will Not Declare War, because she will not give us the ac- 
knowledged right of making reprisals. Her plan is a mono- 
poly of war, and she thinks to succeed by the manoeuvre of not 
declaring war. 

The case then is altogether a question among ourselves. 
Shall we make war on the English government, as the English 
government has made upon us ; or shall we submit, as we have 
done, and that with long forbearance, to the evil of having war 
made upon us without reprisals? This is a right statement of 
the case between the United States and England. 

For several years past, it has been the scheme of that go- 
vernment to terrify us, by acts of violence, into submission to 
her measures, and in the insane stupidity of attempting this, 
she has incensed us into war. We neither fear nor care about 
England, otherwise than pitying the people who live under such 
a wretched system of government. As to navies, they have 
lost their terrifying powers. They can do nothing agains* ^s 
at land, and if they come within our waters, they will b^ «aken 
the first calm that comes. They can rob us on the u< ean, as 
robbers can do, and we can find a way to indemr .; y ourselves 
by reprisals, in more ways than one. 

The British government is not entitler", even as an enemy, 
to be treated as civilized enemies are treated. She is a pirate, 
and should be treated as a pirate. ]SaCpns do not declare war 



502 ON THE QUESTION, WILL THERE EE WAR? 

against pirates, but attack them as a natural right. All civili- 
ties shown to the British government, is like pearl thrown be- 
fore swine. She is insensible of principle and destitute of 
honour. Her monarch is mad, and her ministers have caught 
the contagion. 

The British government, and also the nation, deceive them- 
selves with respect to the power of navies. They suppose that 
ships of war can make conquests at land ; that they can take 
or destroy towns or cities near the shore, and obtain by terror 
what terms they please. They sent Admiral Duckworth to 
Constantinople upon this stupid idea, and the event has shown 
to the world the imbecility of navies against cannon on shore. 
Constantinople was not fortified any more than our American 
towns are now ; but the Turks, on the appearance of the Bri- 
tish fleet, got five hundred cannon and a hundred mortars down 
from the arsenals to the shore, and the blustering heroes of the 
navy seeing this, fled like a hound with a rattle at his tail. 
The gallant people of Norfolk and its neighbourhood have sent 
Douglas off in a similar manner. An Indian who studies na- 
ture is a better judge of naval power than an English minister. 

In March, 1777, soon after taking the Hessians at Trenton, 
I was at a treaty held with the five northern nations of Indians 
at East Town, in Pennsylvania, and was often pleased with the 
sagacious remarks of those original people. The chief of one 
of the tribes, who went by the name of King Last /light, be 
cause his tribe had sold their lands, had seen some English men 
of war in some of the waters of Canada, and was impressed 
with an idea of the power of those great canoes ; but he saw 
that the English made no progress against us by land. This 
was enough for an Indian to form an opinion by. He could 
speak some English, and in conversation with me, alluding to 
the great canoes, he gave me his idea of the power of a king 
of England by the following metaphor. 

44 The king of England," said he, " is like a fish. When 
he is in the water he can wag his tail — When he comes on land 
he lays down on his side." — Now, if the English government 
had but half the sense this Indian had, they would not have 
sent Duckworth to Constantinople, and Douglas to Norfolk, to 
lay down on their bide. 



ON* THE QUESTION, WILL TKi:RE DE WAR? 503 

Accounts from Halifax state, that Admiral Berkeley has al» 
ledged in writing, that " his orders (to Douglas) were not issued 
until every application to restore the mutineers and deserters 
(as he calls them) had been made by his Britannic Majesty's 
ministers, consul, and officer, and had been refused by the go- 
vernment of the United States." 

If this account be true, it shows that Berkeley is an idiot in 
governmental affairs ; for if the matter was in the hands of the 
British minister, who is the immediate representative of his 
government, Berkeley could have no interference in it. That 
minister would report to his government the demand he made, 
if he made any, and the answer he received, if he received 
any, and Berkeley could act only in consequence of orders re- 
ceived afterwards. It does not belong to subordinate officers of 
any government to commence hostilities at their own discretion 

I now come to speak of the politics of the day, as they rise 
out of the circumstances that have taken place. 

The injustice of the British government, and the insolence of 
its naval officers, is no longer to be borne. That injustice, and 
that insolence, grows out of a presumption the British govern- 
ment has setup, which it calls " the right of search." There 
is not, nor ever was, such a right appertaining to a nation in 
consequence of its being in war with another nation. Wherever 
such a right existed, it has been by treaty, and where no such 
treaty exists, no such right can exist, and to assume the exercise 
of it is an act of hostility, which if not abandoned, must be re- 
pelled until it be abandoned. The United States cannot even 
cede such a right to England, without ceding the same right to 
France, Spain, Holland, Naples, Italy, and Turkey, or they will 
take it, and the United States must take the consequence. It is 
very difficult matter, and requires great political wisdom, for a 
neutral nation to make a treaty during a time of war with one 
belligerent nation, that shall not commit her with the other, 
The best way then, since matters are come to the extremity 
they are, is to resist this pretended right of search in the first 
instance. The United States are able to do it, and she is the 
only neutral nation that is able. 

We are not the diminutive people now that Ave were when 
the revolution began. Our population was then two millipns 



504 OX THE QUESTION, WILE THERE DE WAR? 

and an half, it is now between six and seven millions, and in 
less than ten years will exceed the population of England. 
The United States have increased more in power, ability, and 
wealth, within the last twenty or twenty-two years, than she 
did for almost two hundred years before, while the states were 
British colonies. 

She owes this to two things, independence, and the repre- 
sentative system of government. It was always the ill-judged 
and impracticable system of the British government, to keep 
the colonies in a slate of continual nonage. They never*were 
to be of full age, that she might always control them. 

While the United States have been going forward in this 
unparalleled manner, England has been going backward. 
Her government is a bankrupt, and her people miserable. 
More than a million of them are paupers. HeF king is mad, 
and her parliament is corrupt. We have yet to see what the 
present new elected parliament will be. There is one man 
in it, whom I proudly call a friend, from whom there will 
be great expectations; but what can one honest independent 
member do, surrounded by such a mass of ignorance and cor- 
ruption as have for many years past governed that unfortunate 
nation. 

The greafl dependancc of England has been on her navy, 
and it is her navy that has been her ruin. The falsely ima- 
gined power of that navy, (for it was necessary it should be 
amphibious to perform what was expected from it,) has prompt- 
ed the ignorance of her government into insolence towards 
all foreign powers, till England has not a friend left among na- 
tions. Russia and Sweden will quarter themselves upon her 
purse till it becomes empty, and then very probably will turn 
against her. 

Dependimr On her navy, she blockaded whole countries by 
proclamation, and now. Buonaparte, by way of justifiable 
retaliation, has blockaded her by land from the commerce of 
the western part of the continent of Europe. Ner insolent 
and imbecile expedition to Constantinople, has excluded her 
from the commerce of Turkish Europe and Turkey in Asia, 
and thrown it, into the hands of France — and her outrageous 
conduct to u; will exclude her from the. commerce of the 



ON THE QUESTION, WILL THERE BE WAR? 505 

United States. By the insolence of the crew of her navy, the 
is in danger of losing her trade to China; and it is easy to see 
that Buonaparte is paving his way to India by Turkey and 
Persia. The madness of the British government has thrown 
Turkey into the arms of France. Persia lies between Tur- 
key and India, and Buonaparte is forming friendly connexions 
with the Persian government. There is already an enchange 
of ambassadors. Buonaparte is sending military officers into 
Persia, and will, with the consent of its government, raise an 
army there, and attack the English monopoly in India. If 
France holds her connexions with Turkey and Persia, Eng- 
land cannot hold India. 

It is in this wretched chaos of affairs, that the mad govern- 
ment of England has brought on herself a new enemy, by com- 
mencing hostilities against the United States. She must be 
ignorant of the geography of America, or she would know that 
we can dispossess her of all her possessions on the continent 
whenever we please, and she cannot, with safety, keep a fleet 
in the West Indies during the hurricane months. Buonaparte 
will find employment for every soldier she can raise, and those 
she may send to the continent of Europe will become prison- 
ers. There never was an instance of a government conducting 
itself with the madness and ignorance the British government 
has done ! This is John Adams' stupendous fabric of human 
wisdom! 

That the British government will disown giving hostile 
instructions to Berkeley I have no doubt. It is the trick of 
old governments to do so, when they find themselves wrong, 
and pay some scape-goat to bear the blame. But this will 
not be sufficient. The pretended right of search and the 
impressment of our seamen must be abandoned. Three thou- 
sand of them have been impressed by British ships to fight 
against France. The French government has shown a great 
deal of patience in not complaining of it, for it is a great injury 
to her, and must be redressed, or worse consequences will 
follow. 

I have said, in the former part of this essay, that it is a dif- 
ficult matter, and requires great political wisdom, for a neutral 
nation during a war, to form a treaty with one belligerent na- 

vol. i. 64 



506 ON THE QUESTION, WILL THERE RE WAR? 

tion that shall not commit her with the other. I will now give 
an instance of it. 

In 1794, Washington sent Mr. Monroe as Minister to 
France, and John Jay to England, and gave them contra- 
dictory instructions. By the treaty that then existed between 
the United States and France, " Free ships made free 
goods." So that English property on board American ships 
was protected from seizure by France. John Jay made a 
treaty with England, which Washington and the stupjd se- 
nate of that day ratified, by which free ships did not make 
free property, and that French property on board American 
ships could be seized by England. This of consequence vaca- 
ted the free article in the treaty with France, and she availed 
herself of it, and the United States lost the carrying trade of 
both nations. There is a Jesuitism in Jay's treaty, which 
says, that the question whether free ships make free goods 
shall be taken into consideration two years after the war. It 
is now more than two years since that war, and, therefore, it 
forms an item with the matters to be now settled with the 
English government. 

The British government have been so lon<r in the habit o( 
insolence, that she has not the sense of seeing when the power 
Of being insolent < She ought to see that the power of 

Fiance by land is far superior to her power at sea. France, 
by land, can blockade the commerce <»t" England out of Eu- 
rope and India, and the English navy can do nothing to pre- 
vent it. ()(' what Use is it to M rule the waves," if you cannot 
put your fool on shore' If it was a contest for fisheries, the 

most powerful nary would decide; but as it is a contest for 

commerce, it is land force that decides, and navies arc out of 
the question. 

If the British government were wise, she would cease the 
pretended right of search of her own accord, for it bring! her 
into endless trouble. It makes all nations her enemy. Every 

nation detesto the piratical insolence of England, and none 

more so than the United States. The spirit that is now raised, 
cannot be appeased until reparation is made for the past, and 
security be given lor the future. 

yew-York. Aug. 1 1, 1807. COMMON SENSE. 



ROYAL PEDIGREE.* 



George the Third, who was the grandson of George the 
Second, who was the son of George the First, who was the 
son of the Princess Sophia, who was the cousin of Anne, 
who was the sister of William and Mary, who were the 
daughter and son-in-law of James the Second, who was the 
son of Charles the First, who was a traitor to his country 
and decapitated as such, who was the son of James the 
First, who was the son of Mary, who was the sister of Ed- 
ward the Sixth, who was the son of Henry the Eighth, who 
was the cold-blooded murderer of his wives, and the pro- 
moter of the Protestant religion, who w r as the son of Henry 
the Seventh, who slew Richard the Third, who smothered 
his nephew Edward the Fifth, who was the son of Edward 
the Fourth, who with bloody Richard slew Henry the Sixth, 
who succeeded Henry the Fifth, who was the son of Henry 
the Fourth, who was the cousin of Richard the Second, 
who was the son of Edward the Third, who was the son of 
Richard the Second, who Mas the son of Edward the First, 
who was the son of Henry the Third, who was the son of 
John, who was the brother of Richard the First, who was the 
son of Henry the Second, who was the son of Matilda, who 
was the daughter of Henry the First, 'who was the brother of 
William Rufus, who was the son of William the Conqueror, 
who was the son of a whore. 

* Supposed to be Mr. Paine's. 






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